Psychology - Prejudice & Discrimination

In this video, we're learning about prejudice and discrimination. So we'll cover what prejudice and discrimination are, and then cover the different types of bias. Let's start by looking at what prejudice and discrimination are. We naturally tend to categorize people into groups we belong to and groups we don't belong to. When we do this, we tend to favor the groups we're part of and view other groups less favorably. Sharif and his colleagues in 1954 investigated the effects of group identity and prejudice in a study called the Robber's Cave experiment. It involved 22 boys aged between 11 and 12 who were taken to a summer camp and then randomly divided into two groups. One called the Eagles and the other called the Rattlers. For the first week of the experiment, the boys within each group bonded through activities without knowing that the other group even existed. But then the two groups were introduced and made to compete in contests like baseball and tug-of-war. This caused hostility to quickly develop between the two groups. The boys started name-calling, burning each other's flags, and even raiding each other's cabins. Next, the researchers tried to reduce the conflict by bringing the groups together for bonding activities like watching films, but this didn't actually work. The only thing that worked was giving them superordinate goals, which are goals that both groups wanted to achieve but couldn't accomplish without working together. For example, fixing a problem with the camp's water supply. Once they'd worked together on these superordinate goals, the hostility between the groups decreased significantly, and some boys even formed friendships across group lines. The negative attitudes the boys originally developed towards the other group is what we call prejudice. It's basically an attitude someone holds about another person based only on them being a member of a particular group. The Eagles assumed the Rattlers were bad, and vice versa, without really knowing them as individuals, only their group assignment. We can break prejudice down into three components, cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The cognitive component refers to stereotypes, which are generalized beliefs about what members of a group are like. For instance, the boys believing that everyone in the other group was the enemy is a cognitive component of their prejudice. The affective component refers to the emotions associated with a group, so the hostility and anger the boys felt towards each other is an affective component of their prejudice. And the behavioral component refers to the tendency to act on those stereotypes and emotions. So when the boys did act on them through the name-calling, flag-burning, and cabin raids, that's the behavioral component, which we also call discrimination. So, to be clear, prejudice refers to what someone thinks or feels about a group, and discrimination is the actual behavior they exhibit because of that prejudice, usually in the form of unequal treatment. Finally, let's look at the two main types of bias. Explicit bias and implicit bias. First, explicit bias refers to attitudes and beliefs that we're consciously aware of and are willing to openly express. So if someone openly admits to holding negative views about a particular group, like the Rattlers openly expressing their dislike of the Eagles, that's explicit bias. On the other hand, implicit bias refers to unconscious associations This means someone might genuinely believe they hold no prejudice towards a group, yet still have implicit biases that affect how they respond to members of that group. Though it can be quite difficult to measure implicit bias, Greenwald and his colleagues developed a widely used method called the implicit association test. The test works by measuring how quickly people compare different concepts together on a computer, and it has since been used to measure associations between different social groups. It's based on the idea that people respond faster when the pairings match their unconscious associations. For example, if we were using the test to check for any implicit age bias in the participants, in the first round, they'd be shown faces of younger and older adults, along with positive words like wonderful and negative words like terrible. In the first round, the participants would have to quickly press one key when they see either a younger face or a positive word, and a different key for older faces or negative words. Then in the next round, the pairings switch. So if someone is quicker when younger faces are paired with positive words, it suggests they have an implicit preference for younger people. Research using this test has demonstrated that many people show implicit biases that they would consciously reject, suggesting that implicit biases can exist even in people who genuinely believe they treat everyone fairly. If you haven't heard yet, you can find all of our videos on our website, Cognito.org. You'll also find questions, flashcards, exam-style questions, and past papers. And we track all of your progress so that you always know what to study next. So sign up for free by clicking here, or browse our playlist here on YouTube.