Are stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination the same? How are they connected? Why do they happen? How can we reduce prejudice and discrimination? In this post, we will answer all these questions and go over relevant social theories.
Definitions
Let’s start by looking at some important definitions.
Defining Stereotypes
A stereotype is the belief that members of a group share a specific characteristic (“old people are weak”). Stereotypes are non-scientific over-generalizations about a social group, and they can be positive or negative, and conscious or unconscious.
Defining Prejudice
Prejudice is an attitude, generally negative, towards an individual or group based on reinforced misinformation about that group.
Defining Discrimination
Discrimination refers to observable behavior towards someone solely because they belong to a certain group. Discrimination is always negative, harmful behavior and action toward an individual group of people based on social identity groups (race, ethnicity, sex, gender, class, age, etc.).
Kristallnacht was a singular manifestation of prejudice against the Jewish population. In November 1938, Nazi leaders arrested Jews and destroyed their properties. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes.
Is racism over in modern societies?
When discrimination is based on prejudices towards a racial group, it is called racism. In modern societies, there is probably less racism and discrimination than a few decades ago. For example, sexist laws have disappeared, women have more chances to thrive in business, homosexuals are (at least) tolerated in many sectors, and surveys indicate that citizens tend to have more positive thoughts about minorities.
However, even if it feels like our societies have progressed, have prejudices and discrimination truly decreased? Or have we reduced visual discrimination and kept our stereotypes and prejudices under the table?
Many researchers argue that racism is still an issue. The “outdated”, obnoxious racism has been replaced with more subtle ways of discrimination. It is what some call modern racism.
Factors Involved in Prejudices
From a motivational perspective, prejudices result from tensions, emotions, fears, and needs of an individual. In particular, prejudices and discrimination are ways to either reduce those negative emotional states or satisfy basic needs. Let’s look at two examples of motivational factors.
Scapegoat Theory and Frustration
Interference in achieving goals (frustration) produces emotional activation (anger) that sometimes leads to aggression.
Scapegoat theory refers to the tendency to blame others for our own problems. Scapegoating can help us explain failure or wrongdoing while maintaining our positive self-image. This way, we can reduce life frustrations (work, home, friends).
The role of ego: It’s our way to justify our own failures so that we don’t have to face our weaknesses.
Defense mechanism: Individuals displace themselves and put a burden on others.
Projection: Displacement target where we transfer our own anxieties or concerns to other people.
Low power: The individuals being scapegoated are vulnerable.
Scapegoating is more likely to be aimed at (mostly ethnic and religious) outgroups.
Security: weak groups that can be easily attacked without risk of retaliation.
Visibility: the group has characteristics that stand out (color, habits, etc.).
Strange traits: Human beings innately mistrust anything they don’t know (Berkowitz, 1969).
Previous dislike towards the group: displaced aggression will be aimed at groups that were previously disliked.
Social Identity Theory and Superiority
Social identity theory, introduced by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s, describes the cognitive processes related to social identity and how social identity impacts intergroup behavior.
We are motivated to maintain a generally positive self-evaluation, which is determined by two components: our personal identity (dependent on personal success and how we compare them to others) and our social identity (based on group belonging). This theory refers to the part of the self that is defined by our group memberships. Comparisons with otters are determining factors in how we define and evaluate ourselves.
Generally, individuals wish to maintain a positive social identity by favoring their ingroup and looking down on outgroups, even when they belong to the ingroup for random and trivial reasons (ingroups are considered good and outgroups are bad). Therefore, to maintain good self-esteem, we often resort to prejudice and discrimination. Through communication, parents often teach prejudice to their children, and classmates reward discrimination.
The theory describes the conditions under which social identity becomes more important than our identity as an individual, and it is built on three key cognitive components: social categorization, social identification, and social comparison.
The minimal group paradigm is a method employed in social psychology. The goal is to categorize individuals into groups based on minimal criteria that are relatively trivial or arbitrary.
Personality-Related Factors: Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards of our own culture. It refers to our tendency to reject people who are culturally different from our ingroup and blindly accept people who are culturally close to us.
There is a high correlation between anti-Semitism and the general trait of ethnocentrism. Anti-Semitic people tend to have negative attitudes toward all other ethnic, religious, and cultural outgroups.
There is also a high correlation between authoritarian personality and racism.
Cognitive Factors: Categorization
The role of cognitive factors in prejudice has received special attention from social psychologists in the last two decades. Prejudices happen for many reasons, and eradicating them requires tackling all of these processes.
The main cause of prejudice, from a cognitive perspective, is negative stereotypes. That is, the belief that a group has negative characteristics leads to discriminatory behavior. Where do stereotypes come from? How are stereotypes maintained?
Categorization explains how stereotypes are created. To categorize is to place an object, person, animal, or stimulus in a group. It is about identifying what it is (and what category it belongs to).
Categorization is a basic and automatic cognitive process with an adaptive function. It allows us to make assumptions that tend to be correct and which are necessary to make quicker, more efficient decisions.
We also categorize people, which often leads to simplifications of individuals. These assumptions about people tend to be inaccurate with most people, and they have cognitive consequences:
It highlights differences between members of different groups
It minimizes the differences between members of an ingroup
Our perceptions of ingroups tend to be less homogeneous than those of our outgroups. That is, we often think that “they are all alike” while “we are more diverse”.
"They are all alike. We are more diverse".
Cognitive Factors: Selective Information Processing
Selective Information Processing explains how stereotypes are maintained. Stereotypes stem from cultural learning and personal experiences, but how are they maintained if they are often inaccurate?
Stereotypes would be less problematic if we were able to change them when we find out cases that contradict them. However, our information processing is biased. We process information more easily when it is consistent with our attitudes and beliefs.
Selective attention.
We tend to see what we expect to see. We usually pick up on information that confirms our expectations (our stereotypes) and omit what contradicts them. Selective attention allows us to select and focus on a particular input while suppressing irrelevant or distracting information.
Selective perception.
We interpret ambiguous behavior in terms of our stereotypes (ambiguous push by a black/white individual, Duncan, 1976).
When our processing abilities decrease (lack of time or skill), we tend to lean more into stereotypes. We also rely more on stereotypes when we are in a bad mood, depressed, or worried (Esses, Haddock, and Zanna, 1993, 1994).
Selective memory.
We remember information that is consistent with our stereotypes better.
We use stereotypes as a recovery key. In a study (Cohen, 1981), A group of participants watched a video of a woman having dinner with her husband. When they were told that the woman was a waitress, they remembered that she was drinking beer. When they were told that the woman was a librarian, they remembered that she was wearing glasses and was listening to classical music.
How are we maintaining our own stereotypes?
Many people believe that evidence backs their stereotyped ideas. However, biased information processing strengthens our stereotypes, even if they are wrong.
We see more confirmatory cases than opposing ones.
We interpret ambiguous behavior according to our stereotypes.
We remember better the facts that are consistent with our stereotypes.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
A self-fulfilling prophecy is the behavioral outcome of a situation being influenced by our thinking, either positively or negatively.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right.”
When we have stereotypes about other people, our own expectations make us behave differently when we are with that individual. Sometimes, these different behaviors make them behave in ways that confirm our expectations.
Self-fulfilling prophecies, together with biased information processing, strengthen inaccurate stereotypes.
Sexism
Gender stereotypes are beliefs about the common characteristics and behaviors of men and women.
There is scientific evidence that men and women have more similarities than differences - there is about the same likelihood of showing most personality traits, physical and mental capabilities, hopes, fears, and desires. There is also evidence of some differences.
Men usually have better mathematical and spacial skills, are more authoritarian leaders, and are more task-oriented. Men tend to be more aggressive and value independence.
Women tend to have better verbal skills, are usually more democratic leaders, and are more relationship-oriented. They tend to submit to social pressure and value harmony.
Gender stereotypes originate from sexual differences. But are these differences rather related to biological factors or to social experiences?
Social Role Theory
Social role theory is a social psychological theory developed by Alice H. Eagly in the 1980s. It proposes that socialization, gender stereotypes, gender roles, and physical differences all interact to impact the behaviors of men and women. That is, differences and similarities between men and women arise primarily from the social expectations regarding what is considered appropriate behavior for men and women.
Men are expected to be more agents (independent, oriented to utilitarian successes)
Women are expected to be more community-oriented (altruist, interested in others)
We even justify these roles by assuming that both men and women have personality traits consistent with those roles. Thus, men are seen as more independent and competitive, while women are seen as friendly and compassionate.
Sexual differences are caused by the fact that men and women are treated differently, and we all tend to accept our status quo (cultural factor).
Victimization
What are the consequences for individuals in minority groups?
How do prejudices and discrimination change their existence?
There is an objective disadvantage of being the target of prejudices. Individuals in minority groups tend to find it harder to get a prestigious job, they often get lower salaries, etc.
Surprisingly, the self-esteem of individuals that belong to minority groups is as high –if not more– than members of majority groups. Why? Because they attribute their failures and negative outcomes to prejudices.
However, individuals in minority groups are more likely to fail. Therefore, being part of a minority group is not advantageous. People in those groups simply assume attributional ambiguity to protect their self-esteem.
How to Reduce Prejudice and Discrimination
There are effective ways to reduce prejudices and stereotypes, starting by consciously controlling our stereotypes, passing laws against discrimination, and being in contact with diverse people.
Consciously control your stereotypes. Be more aware of the effects that your stereotypes have on minority groups.
Support passing laws against discrimination. Banning discrimination reduces the effect of prejudices. It is not possible to establish laws against stereotypes or prejudices, because these refer to beliefs and attitudes (and we cannot force people to think differently), but we can try to ensure that individuals are not treated in a discriminatory way. Laws help establish social norms. Laws have an educational role, as they help define what behaviors are acceptable in society. They also help create habits. When we urge people to comply with non-discriminatory behaviors, they end up internalizing prejudice-free attitudes.
Increase contact with diverse groups of people. The contact hypothesis suggests that intergroup contact (contact between members of different groups) can lead to more positive attitudes between majority and minority group members. For contact to reduce prejudices, there need to be cooperative behaviors between the groups, and the groups need to have a similar (or equivalent) social status in a given context. That’s why many schools foster social integration and intergroup contact.
☑️ Knowledge Check
1. Belonging to a minority group...
a. is an objective disadvantage because members of a minority group tend to have lower self-esteem.
b. is an objective disadvantage because members of a minority group are more likely to fail.
c. can be an advantage because nowadays we all have similar opportunities.
d. options a and b are both correct.
2. Prejudices are...
a. Attitudes, generally negative ones
b. Beliefs, which can be positive or negative
c. Negative and observable behavior
3. Stereotypes are...
a. Attitudes, generally negative ones
b. Beliefs, which can be positive or negative
c. Negative and observable behavior
4. Discrimination refers to
a. Attitudes, generally negative ones
b. Beliefs, which can be positive or negative
c. Negative and observable behavior
5. Choose the correct option.
a. Establishing anti-prejudice helps define what behaviors are socially appropriate.
b. Banning discriminatory behavior helps create positive habits in our society.
c. Prohibiting stereotypes helps establish social norms.
d. Only prejudices and discrimination can be banned.
6. Scapegoat Theory. Which statement is incorrect?
a. Scapegoating is a defense mechanism used to reduce frustration.
b. It refers to our tendency to blame others for our own problems.
c. Scapegoating tends to be directed at strong individuals.
d. Scapegoating is about transferring our own anxieties or concerns to other people.
7. What is the Social Identity Theory most related to?
a. Projection of our problems
b. Superiority
c. Sexism
d. Victimization
8. Who was involved in the development of the Social Identity Theory?
a. Tajfel
b. Asch
c. Milgram
d. Lewin
Answer Key
1-b / 2-a / 3-b / 4-c / 5-b / 6-c / 7-b / 8-a