ATTITUDES TOWARDS PEOPLE

STEREOTYPING PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

Time to draw!

• Draw a scientist!

STEREOTYPES

• When we evaluate people, we tend to do so by trying to fit them into a category based on our knowledge of people and the world

• E.g. Male/female, young/old, Australian/Vietnamese

• This process of grouping or ‘fitting’ people into a category based on what we know about them is called stereotyping

STEREOTYPES

• A stereotype is a collection of beliefs that we have about the people who belong to a certain group, regardless of individual differences among members of that group

• Let’s compare our drawings!

STEREOTYPES

• It is predicted that more people will draw a male scientist than a female scientist based on gender stereotypes

• Mead’s study (1935) pg. 339

STEREOTYPES

• However, when we stereotype a person as belonging to a particular group, we ignore their individuality

• Complete Learning Activity 8.10 ‘Stereotypes and expectations’

STEREOTYPES

• Another problem with stereotyping is that it can lead to stigmatisation. A stigma is a negative label associated with disapproval or rejection by others who are not labelled in that way

• This can lead to the stigmatised person feeling rejected, ignored, devalued feelings of shame, disgrace, low self esteem etc

Let’s think back to our childhood!

• In groups of 3-4, you are to choose a fairytale to re-write, challenging all the stereotypes that they contain! For example, ‘the prince’ will not be handsome. ‘The two ugly step-sisters’ are actually supermodels! ‘The big, bad wolf’ is actually lovely!

Here are some ideas....

• Little Red Riding Hood• Hansel and Gretel• Sleeping Beauty• Rapunzel• Snow White• Thumbelina • Goldilocks and the three bears• Cinderella

Story time is next Tuesday!

Prejudice and discrimination

• Stereotyping can lead to prejudice which can in turn result in discrimination

• Term prejudice means ‘prejudgement’

• Prejudice can be positive or negative

• Prejudiced in favour of heavy metal music or against heavy metal music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjZwi_PJiio

– black or white MJ• Psychology has tended to focus on study of prejudice as a negative attitude

• Mainly b/c of the social problems that prejudice towards other people can cause

• Prejudice if often defined in psychology as holding a negative attitude towards the members of a group, based solely on their membership of that group

Who?

• Any group can be the focus of prejudice (women, men, members of an ethnic group such as Chinese or Greeks, members of a particular religious group, indigenous people such as Aboriginals, elderly people, people with a mental illness or AIDS, certain occupations, such as truck drivers

4 basic characteristics of prejudice- which can often be observed among members of a majority social group• Tend to believe superior to minority groups• Majority groups tend to believe the minority

group is different from them and that ‘they do not belong’

• Majority group tend to believe they are the more powerful and important than the minority group

• A majority group that displays prejudiced attitudes is insecure, fearing that the minority group may become more powerful and important than itself

• Old fashioned racial prejudice typically involves a view that white people are biologically superior to black people and that the races should be segregated

• Pederson and Walker describe modern prejudice as a form of prejudice which is more subtle, hidden and expressed in ways more likely to be accepted within the majority group

• More likely today to keep their real views private and not share them openly when it is believed that those views may be socially unacceptable and may reflect on them in an unfavourable way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACP-mjyERK0-

Rwanda• Prejudice has been the cause of man atrocities worldwide including

- The extermination of millions of Jews by the Nazis

- The mass slaughter and dispossession of Aborigines, particularly in Tasmania where many were forced to adopt European culture

- The auctioning of Africans as slaves in the US/

• In Australia society and other westers societies modem forms of prejudice are more common than old fashioned forms

• Mainly because open expressions of prejudiced behaviour such as name calling, abuse and discrimination are illegal and socially acceptable

• Prejudice can also be expressed through behaviour – when this occurs it is called discrimination

• Discrimination refers to positive or negative behaviour that is directed towards a social group and its members

• Discrimination can take many forms eg Hitler's attempt to kill all Jewish people during World War II

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIw540m_hOA&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJeJrJtjfm8&feature=related

• Create a venn diagram outlining the key differences between discrimination and prejudice

• PREJUDICE IS AN ATTITUDE• DISCRIMINATION IS A BEHAVIOUR ARISING

FROM PREJUDICE• When prejudice and discrimination are

directed at people who are members of a particular racial or ethnic group eg Somalians, Aboriginals, Asians it is called RACISM

• When directed at people because of their age it is called – AGEISM

• When directed at men or women because of their sex - SEXISM

Article analysis task

• Look at articles and highlight key discrimination issues and solutions to problems

• Then complete 8.17 pg 346

• Victorian Equal opportunity and Human rights commission (2009)

• Describes 2 forms of discriminationDIRECT AND INDIRECT

Find what the difference is…. Q. 4 (Pg. 343)

• DIRECT –treated unfairly and disadvantaged because of a personal characteristics (e.g. overlooked for job on basis of race, gender, age and religious belief)

• INDIRECT – when treating everyone the same way disadvantages someone b/c of personal characteristics e.g. not being able to wear a headscarf

• Complete learning activity 8.14 pg 343

• What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?

• Define the word ‘stigma’ by using moo dictionary- A stigma is a negative label associated with

disapproval or rejection by others who are not labelled in that way

- If a social or cultural group is stigmatized or negatively evaluated then members of that group can feel like outcasts who are devalued, ignored and rejected by others

• Psychologists have proposed many different factors that contribute to the development of prejudice

• What/who do you think might contribute to prejudice?• Like attitudes prejudice is primarily influenced by learning

processes including repeated exposure

• Eg children hear many prejudiced views expressed by parents, other adults and peers and they may adopt these views (children also learn prejudices from messages conveyed in the media)

IN GROUP VS OUT GROUP

• In group – group that you belong to and identify with• Out group – any group you do not belong to or

identify with

• Intergroup conflict – occurs when members of different groups compete to achieve or control something that is wanted by the members fo each group (in particular competition over economic resources like jobs)

ATTRIBUTIONS• Process of trying to explain observed behaviour• Attribution can be internal (from within the person)External (from the environment)- Attribution is personalized and a subjective processFundamental attribution error – people tend to overestimate

the influences of personal characteristics and underestimate the influence of the situation they are in when explaining a persons behaviour (tend to automatically assign judgment to person rather than situation) eg bikie shouting and arguing at a policeman – might conclude that bikies are rebellious and aggressive. You might not consider that soemthing in the situation cause the behaviour (such as bikie being blames for something he didn’t do)

• Just world hypothesis- tendency for individuals to believe that they live in a world where people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get

• When something tragic happens tend to believe that they deserved it rather than believe situational factors were responsible for it

• Eg Carl Williams deserved being murdered b/c they have done things wrong in their past to harm others (this type of false belief can form the basis of prejudice

Quiz- attitude formation and changego over quiz and write a summary of

notes for what you did not know

Attitude formation and change

Cognitive interventions

Involve changing the way in which someone thinks about prejudice

E.g. may require a prejudiced person or group to consider prejudice from the victims perspective

If people can be encouraged to understand others based on their individual characteristics rather than generalizing some of their characteristics to stereotype them then prejudice may be lessened

• American psychologist believes that everyone's thinking is influences by their exposure to negative stereotypes

• Can occur in many aspects of daily life such as in the home, at work, at school, when socializing with friends

To overcome prejudice 3 step process

1) Individual must decide that their prejudiced behaviour and attitude are wrong and consciously reject prejudice and stereotyped thinking

2) Must make their non-prejudiced beliefs and important part of their self concept (that is how they think and feel about themselves as a person)

3) Individual must learn to suppress or block from conscious awareness prejudicial reactions that may occur and deliberately replace them with non prejudiced responses that are based on their personal standards

Every person is a unique individual

Measurement of attitudes• Observational studies• Self-report methods• Questionaires, surveys • interviews• Rating scales

• Break up into groups each group becomes an expert on topic teaches the class and has to create an example for class (eg come up with a question like marriage – so would you marry another ethnic group and create a questionaire for class based on topic etc)

Advantages and disadvantages pg 365

ETHICS

• Complete learning activity 8.17 pg 346 and 8.16 pg 344