Psy Ch9-Part4.ppt

Stereotypes & Categorization Categorization: is the process by which people identify a stimulus as a member of a class of related stimuli Stereotyping: is the process by which people draw inferences about others based on their knowledge of the categories to which others belong Yep, I said Ubiquitous Prejudice is ubiquitous; it affects all of us -- majority group members as well as minority group members. How? Quick History Lesson? Prejudice is dangerous, fostering negative consequences from lowered self-esteem to genocide. Clark and Clark (1947) and playing with white dolls Brown vs. Board of Education (desegregation) Goldberg (1968) and Joan versus John McKay The author mattered? The Holocaust Are We Improving? Yes and No Over the past 30 years, blatant discrimination has been reduced; however, prejudice still exists in subtle -- and sometimes blatant -- forms. Prejudice: A Progress Report Real progress has been made for women and minorities in the last few decades. However, it would be a mistake to think that prejudice is no longer a serious problem in the United States. All Bad? Positive versus negative stereotypes The utility of categorizing our environment (Cognitive Misers) When does it cross the line? All Bad? Stereotypes can be positive or negative. Also, positive stereotypes can be just as harmful as negative stereotypes. e.g., ?Women are sensitive?, ?Asians are smart? Quick heuristic based judgments ?That is a textbook? ?It is probably expensive? What is stereotype threat? Stereotype Threat Stereotype threat - the fear that one might confirm the negative stereotypes held by others about one?s group When a negative stereotype becomes salient as a criterion for test evaluation individual group members become concerned about confirming the stereotype. Through various psychological mechanisms the concern can cause group members to perform more poorly than they would performing in a neutral context Stereotype Threat In one study, women were asked to take a difficult exam taken from the math portion of the GRE (Graduate Record Exam). For some students, gender was made salient by asking them to report it at the beginning of the test. Threat White men did worse on athletic tasks they thought tapped ?natural ability.? Women show stereotype threat in response to tasks presented as diagnostic of leadership ability. African American participants performed worse on GRE questions when their ethnicity was made salient. White men did worse in math when they thought they were being compared to an Asian (Aronson et al, 1999). Stereotype Threat Stereotype threat sometimes leads people to disidentify with those arenas where society expects them to fail. Disidentify -to decide that the arena is no longer relevant to their self esteem Example: I don?t care about math... Reducing Stereotype Threat Humor reduces anxiety assoc. w. threat. Role models who contradict stereotype. Simply learning about stereotype threats can reduce them. Measuring Stereotypes & Prejudice A few decades ago the study of stereotyping & prejudice was fairly straightforward? research participants would provide honest answers concerning how they felt about some groups. As societal norms have changed, people are less willing to openly endorse stereotypes or reveal prejudice. Tricky... In order to study stereotyping & prejudice today, researchers have had to resort to more subtle methods: disguised questionnaires elaborate experimental cover stories physiological measures (e.g., facial EMG, galvanic skin response) implicit reaction time measures (e.g., The Implicit Association Test; IAT) Can we have implicit biases? Attitudes: implicit vs. explicit attitudes How can we measure implicit attitudes? The IAT Implicit Association Test Classification of items into categories and measure the reaction time The differences in time latency indicate a closer association between the two concepts How does it work? When two concepts are not associated it is not easy to give the same response to their exemplars Ease of giving the same response to exemplars of two concepts measures the association between the two concepts When two concepts are associated it is easy to give the same response to their exemplars Validity? Is this test valid? What is it truly measuring? Do AA?s show the same bias? What do you think? Do these tests correlate with explicit measures? Weapons Effect Weapons Effect What is going on here in the brain? Under what circumstances are we likely to see the bias increase? stereotypes Can be self-perpetuating (selective attention) Self-fulfilling prophecy: Observers bring about what they expect to perceive Stereotyping can be automatic Automatic Stereotypes AA or Caucasians holding guns were flashed on the screen for less than 1 second Ss earned money when pressed shoot when person was holding a gun and lost money when they made an error Ss were quicker to ?shoot? pictures of AA?s What is more curious? Ss were also more prone to ?shoot? AA?s when they were holding non-gun objects In-class activity Spend 3 minutes and give me a short paragraph on your thoughts on the Brown eyed Blue eyed videos we watched in class today?