Stereotypes and Prejudice

Abstract

The authors examine overt and subtle forms of stereotyping and prejudice. Two theories that explain overt prejudice are reviewed: realistic conflict theory and social identity theory. Although overt prejudice seems to have declined, subtle stereotyping is still pervasive. The authors review one theory, aversive racism theory, that explains this phenomenon. They also discuss two perspectives, attributional ambiguity and stereotype threat, which provide accounts of the impact of subtle racism. Both overt and subtle prejudice present challenges for the classroom. The authors describe one intervention called the jigsaw classroom that encourages work toward common goals and helps reduce the expression and impact of overt discrimination. A second intervention program, wise schooling, is presented, which aims to reduce the impact of subtle stereotypes by reducing stereotype threat.

On Interpreting Stereotype Threat as Accounting for African American-White Differences on Cognitive Tests.

“…However, in another condition, when the exact same test was presented as simply a laboratory problem-solving exercise, African Americans performed equally as well as Whites on the test. One simple adjustment to the situation (changing the description of the test) eliminated the performance differences between Whites and African Americans.” (Wolfe & Spencer, 1996, p. 180)“Similar research found that African American participants’ performance was impaired by making salient the stereotype that minorities perform poorly on diagnostic standardized tests (Steele & Aronson, 1995). African Americans performed equally to their White counterparts when the diagnostic use of the test was eliminated, thus eliminating stereotype threat.” (Oswald & Harvey, 2001, p. 340)…”

“…However, in another condition, when the exact same test was presented as simply a laboratory problem-solving exercise, African Americans performed equally as well as Whites on the test. One simple adjustment to the situation (changing the description of the test) eliminated the performance differences between Whites and African Americans.” (Wolfe & Spencer, 1996, p. 180)…”

Do people perceive juvenile sex offenders who are gay and Christian as hypocrites? The effects of shared and dual identity defendants

“…Although explicit attitudes toward gay people might be more positive compared to the past, implicit, negative connotation associated with identifying as gay (vs heterosexual) persists (Breen and Karpinski, 2013). This supports a common perception that America is demonstrating a decrease in overt discrimination and prejudice while subtler, covert discrimination persists (Morrison et al, 2005;Wolf and Spencer, 1996). Discrimination against gay individuals has also been demonstrated in legal judgments in the context of child sexual abuse (Stawiski et al, 2012;Wiley and Bottoms, 2009), murder (Ragatz and Russell, 2010;Salerno et al, 2015) and juvenile sex offender (Comartin et al, 2013;Salerno et al, 2014) cases.…”

Basking in reflected glory: the election of president Obama and naming behaviour

“…People categorize themselves within groups and evaluate each other based on the value or worth of social identities through a comparing process. The individual primarily compares his or her group with other groups (Wolfe and Spencer 1996).…”