Stereotypes And Prejudice

In today’s society, announcing one’s aversion towards people different from them is the fastest way receive ridicule. In general, society has progressed to a point where being xenophobic, racist, and sexist is socially unacceptable. Despite this progress, society still suffers from the effects of racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Why is that? The answer has to do with the fact that while explicit expressions of these behaviors are seen as unacceptable, implicit associations still permeate our society. These associations lead to implicit bias. Implicit bias is readily becoming the most pervasive form of bias in our society. It contributes to both micro and macro-level inequalities, and raising awareness of implicit bias is crucial in order to suppress its effects on society. This paper will start with a discussion of what implicit bias is. This will be followed by a discussion of the effects of implicit bias. It will conclude with a discussion of how implicit bias can be combatted.

Patricia G. Devine (1989) argued that prejudice will continue to exist simultaneously with stereotypes and that stereotyping occurs automatically and inevitably. To prove this, Devine and her team conducted three studies to examine the automatic and controlled components of prejudice.

Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is

The definition of prejudice may vary among the different psychologist but most will agree that prejudice has something to do with prejudgment, typically negative, about a group. (Fiskie, 1998; Jones, 1997; Nelson, 2002 ). According to Plous (2003), Prejudice is not exactly considered an opinion, but an attitude which includes feeling such as hating the group, rather than believing they’re bad. Within psychology, we can link prejudice with discrimination and stereotyping (Plous, 2003). Although each may go together, they can be done separately. Prejudice and discrimination are most likely absent in a positive stereo type (Plous, 2013). For example describing an ethnic group as “family oriented”. Stereo typing does little to no harm without discrimination or prejudice. A generalized form of prejudice may lack discrimination and stereo types, such as being against foreigners.

The proposed study aims to investigate the relationship between implicit prejudices and their effect on perception and judgment of others. Individuals generally hold specific prejudices towards their ingroups and outgroups and these can be deliberately or subconsciously expressed through explicit or implicit attitudes, respectively. Learning more about the relationship between the subconscious prejudicial attitudes people hold and how these affect perceptions of others is important if a better understanding of intergroup relations is to be made. More specifically, and relevant to the study at hand, investigating implicit prejudices White individuals have and how these affect their

Implicit bias can be considered as the attitudes or beliefs of an individual that affect under-standing, actions and decisions toward other individuals in a subconscious way. Implicit bias can be based on descriptors like age, weight, and the subject of this study, race. Research shows that there are real world implications that reflect that strength and preference of an individual’s implicit racial bias. Research has also demonstrated that it is possible to reduce an individual’s implicit racial bias if they are willing and have access to an appropriate intervention. This experiment adapted one such intervention which had successfully reduced implicit racial bias in a Caucasian majority group. Participants in our experiment completed several

Founded in 1989,“Project Implicit” is a research study conducted by Harvard, Virginia and Washington State University that examines implicit biases of all kinds. The main study that was examined was the testing of preference towards blacks and whites. The hypothesis was that a majority of Americans had an automatic preference over whites than blacks. The test was implemented by assigning negative and positive words to each (race). A control group would then be tested on how quickly they respond to those negative or positive associations when faced with either white or black faces. It was found that individuals readily associate positive stereotypes and attributes with whites rather than other races, particularly

Devine, P. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18.

This essay intends to argue that implicit racial prejudice can be reduced through the use of interventions that seek to promote familiarity and recognition of implicit racial prejudice. The first part will detail the factors that contribute to implicit racial prejudice specifically, identity, stereotyping and

Project Implicit, a non-profit organization and international association of researchers who are interested in, “implicit social cognition,” which are the internal concepts and emotions one has subconsciously without being aware or equipped to monitor their thoughts (Project Implicit - a). Established in 1998, Project Implicit designed an Implicit Association Test, or IAT, that estimates the depth of the relationships among notions and evaluations or stereotypes (Project Implicit - a & b). While participating in three of the fourteen IATs, I commenced my awareness of the unintentional biases that I acquired through my cultural environment, promoting a more conscious application towards multicultural competence (States).

Research demonstrates that cognitive processes trigger implicit stereotyping and affective processes trigger implicit evaluation; inferring independence. Amodio and Devine (2006) conducted several implicit association tests (IATs), concluding that stereotyping and evaluation were uncorrelated. However their finding of a double dissociation implies a link, the former being implicated in semantic learning and memory, and the latter in affective types.

In today’s society there are many different stereotypes, many of which can be applied to every single ethnic group. At one point in any person’s life, they would have experienced some form of stereotyping. Every individual, whether young or old, is labelled with either a negative or positive stereotype. For example, it is often typically said that lawyers are deceitful, females tend to be less aggressive than males, all African Americans are extremely virtuous at basketball, and the list is simply endless. Stereotypes are often heard every day and everywhere, at any given moment. They are usually very widespread and used so frequently that they have seemed to become a natural behavior for human beings; and it is a part of our everyday life. At times we can find ourselves in situations where we make stereotypes and or assumptions for a large group of individuals. Stereotyping is a way in which people categorize and group one another. Stereotypes can affect people’s social lives, along with their emotions, and also how people interact within a particular environment as well. Stereotyping is a form of prejudgment that is as customary in today’s society as it was many years ago. It is a social attitude which has stood the test of time and attracted much attention from social physiologists alongside philosophers. Many approaches to, and theories of stereotyping have consequently been raised.

The psychology behind stereotype threats is universal. A stereotype threat imposed on an individual can increase that individual’s anxiety about a task, and therefore lower the success his performance. For example, the stereotype threat the women are poorer drivers than men affects their ability to successfully avoid collision. When reminded that women are poor drivers, female drivers were twice as likely to collide with jaywalking pedestrians than women not reminded of this stereotype threat (Yeung and Von Hippel,

Most people find stereotypes to be obnoxious, especially when they have to do with sensitive subjects like gender or race. “Stereotyping is a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behaviors” (Floyd, 61). Because they underestimate the differences among individuals in a group, stereotyping can lead to inaccurate and offensive perceptions of other people. Although stereotypes are prevalent in almost every society, becoming aware of our perceptions of others, as well as differentiating between both positive and negative stereotypes can help us overcome those stereotypes.

A cognitive bias is a systematic error in mental processing that occurs when we attempt to simplify information and take cognitive shortcuts which can influence behaviour. As cognitive misers, we often use cognitive shortcuts, or heuristics, to explain the environment around us. Social Psychology is the study of the social causes of and influences on behaviour. In this essay the effects of cognitive biases on our decision-making processes in the domain of self-concept and the domain of stereotypes and prejudice in social psychology will be