Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 5

Discrimination refers to positive or negative behaviour directed toward a social group and its members. Prejudice is a positive or negative evaluation of a social group and its members. Stereotypes are a mental representation or impression of a social group that people form by associating particular characteristics and emotions with the group. A social group refers to two or more people who share some common characteristic that is socially meaningful for themselves or for others. Social categorization is the process of identifying individual people as members of a social group because they share certain features that are typical of the group. People focus om similarities and this causes us to overestimate the uniformity and underestimate the diversity. Social categorization makes people more seem different or more similar.

Stereotypes include many types of characteristics, such as physical appearance, behaviour and personality traits. Positive stereotypes can also have negative consequences. People sort themselves into groups and this creates real group differences that may be reflected in stereotypes. Some stereotypes are accurate, although exaggerated.

At first, people thought hatred for groups had its roots in the inner conflicts of those with authoritarian personalities, those who cannot accept their own hostility and see their own inadequacies in others. A single group member’s negative act can activate negative thoughts about the entire group. Trying to summarize the information we receive about group members during interactions lead to bias and exaggeration. This has several reasons:

1. Emotion
   A lack of knowledge or familiarity of members of a group can give rise to certain emotions, which biases future interactions. Members of different groups may also be pursuing different sorts of goals during cross-group interactions, which can give rise to certain emotions, which biases future interactions. People from different groups want to form impressions that counter the stereotypes and this may lead to negative emotions.
2. Distinctive individuals
   People who are a member of a group and stand out are more likely to be remembered. Illusory correlation is a perceived association between two characteristics that are not actually related. Distinctive behaviours have the greatest impact on the impressions we form of groups.
3. Correspondence biases
   Our stereotypes often reflect the social roles occupied by those groups. Stereotypes might not reflect what groups are actually like, but only what roles group play in society, relative to the perceiver.
4. Media
   The media helps convey stereotypes. This can bias future interactions.

Stereotypes also serve our desire to establish connections with similar others. Our desire to connect with others may be a motive to accept stereotypes. Social norms are generally accepted ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that people in a group agree on and endorse as right and proper. Stereotypes may become stronger through the process of social communication. Second-hand impressions are more stereotypical than first-hand impressions. Stereotypes also serve the function of justifying existing roles of social groups. People who believe that the world naturally just tends to be more prejudiced.

A stereotype can only influence judgements or actions if it comes to mind. The more salient cues to category membership, the more likely it is that the category and its related stereotypes will come to mind. Admitting a single member of a previously excluded group can increase the likelihood of stereotyped thinking. The more often a category is used, the more accessible it becomes. The more accessible a stereotype is, the more often it is used. Stereotypes can be activated automatically, without our awareness. Prejudice can also be activated automatically.

Implicit measures are measurement methods used to measure implicit stereotypes or prejudice, although implicit measures are not always correct. It is possible that some people are not completely consciously aware of their stereotypes. Implicit measures are affected by situational factors.

Stereotypes have a greater effect when judgements must be made under time pressure and when emotions are intense. Stereotypes can cause us to focus on one group membership and ignore other group memberships. There are several types of effects of stereotypes on judgement and actions:

1. Effect of cognitive capacity
   Conditions that limit people’s cognitive capacity increases the effects of stereotypes on their judgements. This holds for time-pressure and the complexity of the information. People are also more likely to use stereotypes when their thinking is not at their best (e.g: in the morning while being an evening person). The familiarity of the situation also affects cognitive capacity.
2. Effect of emotion
   Strong emotions increase people’s reliance on stereotypes.
3. Effect of power
   People in power sometimes stereotype more and sometimes stereotype less. This depends on what information is useful in obtaining their goal. If stereotyping is useful, people in power will stereotype more.

When people think of an ethnic or national group, they mostly think of the men in that group. Research suggests that stereotypes that are suppressed rebound and become more accessible. This means that actively trying to suppress stereotypes might not help in overcoming the stereotype. Individuals with high internal motivation and low external motivation exhibit better stereotype control. Some people try to correct their biased judgements. A more effective strategy than stereotype correction is intentionally exposing oneself to counter-stereotypical information.

People tend to notice and remember what we expect to see and what we expect to see is highly reliant on stereotypes. People tend to look for stereotype-confirming information and not for stereotype-disconfirming information. Special processing of unexpected behaviours causes us to change impressions of individuals, but rarely of groups. The way information is interpreted is also prone to stereotypical bias. Stereotypes cause us to shift our standards for judgements on subjective characteristic (e.g: a woman the same height as a man is tall, while the man is not). People might elicit stereotype-consistent behaviour. People’s actions often elicit information that confirms and maintains their group stereotypes.

The contact hypothesis states that contact with individual members who violate the group stereotype should reduce the stereotype. Contact that contradicts a stereotype might now undermine a stereotype. People often explain information away that is inconsistent with a stereotype. People sometimes defend their stereotypes by resorting to specific subtypes, a narrower and more specific social group that is included within a broad social group. Subtypes protect stereotyped beliefs from change. People also tend to defend their stereotypes by seeing stereotype disconfirming individuals as remarkable or exceptional people. Contrast effects refer to those group members that violate the stereotype are atypical of the group, so atypical that their actions have no effect on the stereotype of the typical group.

Effective contact has to provide stereotype-inconsistent information that is repeated, that involves many group members and that comes from typical group members. Contact that is forced, rather than voluntary has stronger effects on reducing prejudice.

Repeated inconsistencies with the current stereotype can solve explaining away the exceptions. Widespread inconsistency with the current stereotype can solve creating a subtype for exceptions of the rule. Being typical as well as inconsistent can solve contrast effects.

The types of contact that can eliminate stereotypes can also reduce prejudice, although prejudice is also activated by other things. A single positive encounter with a member of another group may be sufficient to reduce prejudicial evaluations. Contact can reduce group prejudice.