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Can Sterotypes Be Dangerous?

“I think old people are slow-moving, boring, and have difficulty understanding new things.”
Stereotype

“I don’t like old people because I think they are slow-moving, boring, and have difficulty understanding new things.”
Prejudice
Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype

“I’m not going to hire this old person because I think old people are slow-moving, boring, and have difficulty understanding new things.”
Discrimination
Inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice

Inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice
- Study was done where researchers asked participants if objects flashed on the screen paired with a human face was an object or a weapon
  - When flashed with a white person’s face, participants were more likely to say tool
  - When flashed with a black person’s face, participants were more likely to say weapon

Psychological reasons
Improves self-esteem to see other groups as inferior
Transfer frustrations of life onto other groups
- Psychological reasons
- Social reasons
  - Conformity (friends, family, work associates)
  - Developmental influence (“My parents always said…”)
  - Tradition (“We have never associated with [insert group]…”)
Psychological reasons
Social reasons
Economic causes
Cultural or national causes
- Regional conflicts, war
- Enemies are described as “dogs”, “vermin”, “scum”, “heathens”, “rats”, etc.
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  - They only think that way because of the war

Stereotypes exaggerate differences between groups
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- “Otherness” is enhanced
Stereotypes underestimate differences within the stereotyped group
- Outgroup homogeneity effect: Once we categorize others as ingroup or outgroup members, we tend to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members
Stereotypes are self-maintaining
- They direct our attention toward information that confirms them and away from disconfirming evidence
- Subtyping: When we encounter someone who does not fit a stereotype, we put that person in a special category rather than alter the stereotype
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  - Instead of changing an entire schema, we acknowledge a a person as an exception
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  - There’s not a lot of people who are extreme liberal or extreme conservative
    - The problem is that we draw the line too harshly
      - Even though most of us are around the center
- The problem is that we estimate that the average is way more extreme
- Also, we don’t care that some people are dead in the middle, but still fall one into the category of liberal or conservative
  - We’re not good at changing what we already believe

We can consciously alter our automatic stereotyping
- Presenting positive examples of admired Black individuals (e.g., Denzel Washington) produced more-favorable responses toward African Americans
- Training people to respond counter-stereotypically — having them press a “no” key when they saw an elderly person paired with a stereotype of the elderly — led to reduced automatic stereotyping
- Telling people that their test scores indicate that they hold negative stereotypes can motivate people to correct their beliefs, and the worse they feel about holding those beliefs, the harder they try not to be biased
However, in everyday life, inhibiting stereotyped thinking is difficult and requires self-control

Equal legal status, economic opportunities, and power among different groups
Authorities and community institutions provide moral, legal, and economic support for both sides
Both sides must have many opportunities to work and socialize together, formally and informally
- Contact hypothesis
Cooperation and working together for a common goal
Audio 0:24:55.731034

personality describes characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors that are relatively stable in an individual over time and across circumstances
personality trait
Freud developed many ideas about personality by observing his patients
He believed their problems wer psychogenic (caused by psychological rather than physical factors)
psychodynamic theory: unconscious forces - wishes, desires, hidden memories - determine behavior

Personality consists of three interacting structures that vary in their access to consciousness
Id
- unconscious working to avoid pain and obtain pleasure
- sexual instinct (fueled by libido)
- death (aggressive) instinct
Superego
- internalized societal and parental standards of conduct
Ego
- Tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the superego
Id = urges
Ego = arbiter
Superego=conscience
According to Freud, conflicts between the id and the superego lead to anxiety
The ego then copes through various defense mechanisms
Early childhood experiences have a major impact on the development of personality
Children go through developmental stages that correspond to the different urges - each stage has a unique conflict
Some people become fixated at a stage
- Fixation occurs if the conflict for each stage is not resolved properly

Oral: birth to 18 months
- Infants seek pleasure through the mouth
Anal 2-3 years. Learning to control the bowels leads to a focus on the anus
Phallic stage: 3-5 years
- Focus is on the genitals
- Oedipus complex
Latency stage
- Children suppress libidinal urges
Genital stage
- Adolescence/adulthood. Libidinal urges focused on the capacities to reproduce and to contribute to society

Term	Definition
Stereotype	Predefined judgements about a group of people
Prejudice	Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype
discrimination	Inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice
improves self-esteem and relieves frustration	Reasons why people use prejudice and discrimination
outgroup homogeniety effect	Once we categorize others as ingroup or outgroup members, we tend to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members
subtyping	When we encounter someone who does not fit a stereotype, we put that person in a special category rather than alter the stereotype
reducers of prejudice	equal legal status, equal representation, equal opertunity, and cooperation
personality	characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors that are relatively stable in an individual over time and across circumstances
personality trait	a characteristic of a person
psychodynamic theory	unconscious forces - wishes, desires, hidden memories - determine behavior
Id	unconscious working to avoid pain and obtain pleasure
Superego	internalized societal and parental standards of conduct
Ego	tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the superego