PS 474 Lecture Outline: The Political Psychology of Prejudice

I. Why study prejudice and stereotyping in a course in political science?

A. Psychology

B. Examples in current events

1. Genocide

2. All three candidates left in the race are the object of stereotypic thinking and prejudices: gender, race and age.

C. The group basis of politics

1. Public thinking about politics is group-centered:

a) Reality:

b) Perception:

c) Political rhetoric

D. The ubiquity of prejudice in the world and the U.S.

II. Stereotyping

1. Simple def: a set of beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people—i.e., a generalization about a group.

2. Cultural versus Individual stereotypes

3. Can be good or bad: All Asians excel at math.

4. Evolution in thinking about stereotypes, from Lippmann to Freud to cognitive miser to motivated tactician.

B. Categorization:

1. Stereotyping used to be regarded as the product of “lazy” thinking by stupid people or “repressed hostility” by sick people.

2. Cognitive misers. efficiency over accuracy

3. Motivated tactician

4. Primitive categories

5. Ingroups versus outgroups & the minimal group paradigm

C. How and Why Stereo’s are Maintained

1. Stereotypes bias the processing of ambiguous information (see Kunda) and thus maintain or perpetuate themselves.

2. Subcategorization (subtyping)

3. Illusory Correlations

4. Motivation & ability

III. Old-fashioned vs. Modern Prejudice

A. Trends in racial attitudes (Schuman, Bobo, and Steeh)

1. Changes in attitudes regarding principles versus implementation (see Table)

2. Explanations of change

3. Theories of change in racial attitudes

a) Inevitability of prejudice and social desirability bias

b) Blatant versus Subtle prejudice

c) Modern racism

d) Symbolic Racism (Racial Resentment)

e) Aversive Racism

f) Laissez-Fairre Racism vs. Jim Crow Racism, Group conflict

g) Self-interest

h) Principled Conservatism

4. Old-fashioned vs. modern sexism

a) Modern sexism

b) Benevolent vs. hostile sexism

B. Measuring Stereotyping and Prejudice

1. Self-Report Measures

2. Unobtrusive Measures

a) The Bogus-Pipeline

b) Kuklinski, et al’s List Experiment: The thesis of the “New South”

3. Implicit Measures (see Ch. 3 in Nelson)

4. Priming and Reaction times

IV. The Prejudiced Personality: Authoritarianism (ch 4 in Nelson)

A. THE PREJUDICED PERSONALITY

B.     INTOLERANT PERSONALITY

C.     UNDEMOCRATIC (FASCIST) PERSONALITY.

D.    Research by Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (1950). Psychoanalytic approach.

E.     Altemeyer’s trait approach to Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)

1.     Authoritarian submission:  a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.

2.     Authoritarian aggression:  a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.

3.     Conventionalism:  a high degree of adherence to dominant social conventions endorsed by society and established authorities.

G.    Measure of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA):  see Altemeyer

H.    More recent political science approaches: Feldman and Stenner

1.     Childhood values and Social Conformity

I.       Authoritarian Responses: 

1.     Punitiveness

2.     Prejudice toward a wide range of outgroups

3.     Political intolerance: unwillingness to extend civil liberties to unpopular groups

J.    Roots of authoritarianism

1.     Genetic?

2.     Socialization?

3.     Religious orthodoxy?

V. Experiencing Prejudice (Nelson, Ch 6)

A. Terms to know:

1. Stereotype threat, Disidenitification, Dynamic nature of interactions, Metastereotypes. The paradoxical effects of affirmative action.

VI. Reducing Prejudice (Nelson, ch 9)

A. Terms to know:

1. Contact hypothesis, Sherif’s Robber Cave study, Confrontation technique, Self-regulation and the dissociative model

VII. The Political Consequences of Racial Prejudice and Stereotyping

A. Biases in associating race & crime (Eberhardt)

B. Voting biases (Weaver)

C. Social Desirability and the Racial Framing of Barack Obama (Darren Davis)