Definition
- Prejudice: A negative attitude toward individuals based on group membership.
- Discrimination: Unfair treatment of individuals or groups based on group membership, often resulting from prejudice.
The Origins and Effects of Prejudice and Discrimination
Social Identity Theory (SIT)
- Asserts that prejudice and discriminatory behaviors originate from social categorization (in-groups and out-groups).
Realistic Group Conflict Theory (RGCT)
- Suggests that prejudice and competitive inter-group discriminatory behaviors arise from incompatible goals and negative interdependence.
- When groups compete for limited resources, prejudice and discrimination increase.
Implicit Bias
Prejudice, which leads to discrimination, may stem from cognitive biases. These biases may be explicit (openly stated) or implicit (not openly acknowledged).
- Bartlett’s Schema Theory provides a framework for understanding implicit bias.
- Activation of social schemas influences cognitive processes like memory, leading to prejudice and discrimination.
- Measured using Implicit Association Test (IAT)
- Digital test presents paired words on a screen, participants categorize words based on these pairings.
- The time taken to categorize words reveals the strength of implicit associations.
- Faster reaction times indicate stronger associations between concepts (e.g. "Black" and "unpleasant").
Levinson (2007):
Aim: To investigate the effect of implicit bias on memory recall.
Method:
- Participants read two stories:
- A fistfight
- An employee being terminated
- The race of the protagonist was manipulated:
- Caucasian
- African-American
- Hawaiian
Stories were otherwise identical for all participants
- After a brief distractor task, participants completed a yes/no questionnaire measuring recall of story details.
- A separate test measured explicit racial preferences (self-reported racial attitudes).
Results:
- Participants’ recall of the story revealed negative racial biases towards African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hawaiian characters.
- More likely to remember aggressive details like punching someone from behind for African American characters compared to Caucasian characters.
- More likely to falsely remember positive details like receiving an award for Caucasian characters.
- No correlation found between memory biases and explicit racial preferences.
Conclusion: Implicit biases influence cognitive processes and operate separately from explicit racial preferences. Individuals may unconsciously hold biases even if they do not openly express racial prejudice.
Evaluation:
- Demonstrates how unconscious racial biases can influence memory and perception, even without explicit prejudice.
- The controlled design of identical stories ensured only race was manipulated, strengthening internal validity.
- Findings are relevant to criminal justice where racial bias in memory recall could have serious consequences.
- Bias was inferred from memory distortions rather than directly assessed with an Implicit Association Test.
- The study assumes pre-existing racial schemas influenced recall but did not measure schema activation directly.
- Participants may have guessed the study’s aim, influencing how they recalled details (demand characteristics).
Biological Correlations of Prejudice
Research has identified brain regions associated with prejudice and discrimination:
- Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC): Processes social information about people.
- Insula: Associated with feelings of disgust.
- Amygdala: Plays a role in emotional reactions, especially fear.
Harris & Fiske (2006):
Aim: To investigate socioemotional and neurological reactions to outgroup members.
Method:
- 10 right-handed American undergraduate students were put into an fMRI.
- They were presented with different combinations of images that evoke distinct emotions:
- High competence + High warmth (in-group members, admired individuals)
- High competence + Low warmth (rich businesspeople)
- Low competence + High warmth (elderly, disabled people)
- Low competence + Low warmth (homeless people, drug addicts)
Results:
- Images of people perceived as ‘disgusting’ (low competence, low warmth: homeless individuals, drug addicts) triggered:
- High activation in the amygdala and insula (associated with fear and disgust).
- No activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), an area typically associated with social cognition and perceiving others as human.
Conclusion: People who are socially distant (low warmth) and perceived as low competence may be prone to discrimination and be dehumanized at a neural level. The lack of mPFC activation suggests participants did not recognize these individuals as human.
Evaluation:
- Demonstrates biological evidence for prejudice.
- The use of fMRIs allowed for objective measurement, reducing social desirability bias in self-reported data.
- The small sample size reduces generalizability.
- The study cannot establish causality.
Critical Thinking
- Strengths:
- IAT provides objective measures of bias.
- Research has informed real-world interventions aimed at reducing bias.
- Limitations:
- The IAT may not always accurately reflect real-world behaviors, as implicit biases do not always translate into discriminatory actions.
- Prejudice is influenced by multiple factors, including cultural, situational, and individual differences, making it difficult to generalize findings across all contexts.
- Applications:
- Anti-discrimination training and policies informed by research can reduce workplace and societal biases.
- Findings inform efforts to promote diverse and accurate representations in media, reducing discrimination over time.
