8.1: Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination and Bias

Stereotypes

As children grow, they learn how to behave from those around them. In this socialization process, children are introduced to certain attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs and develop cognitive schemas. Stereotypes are cognitive schemas that incorporate culturally shared representations of social groups and influence information processing related to social categorization (Dovidio et al., 2010; Yzerbyt, 2016). When we encounter someone for the first time, we may not be aware of their cultural or social identities. If we do not have any prior knowledge, we tend to assign individuals to categories based on appearance, age, and the context in which the encounter takes place. This is normal human behavior, as we make sense of the world by putting objects and people into categories. We tend to categorize based on perceived similarities and differences. Obviously, our ability to make viable choices depends on our own degree of experience and knowledge. The less knowledge we have, the more likely we are to fall back on general information we may have acquired informally from friends, family, or media reports. Our mind tries to connect the dots in order to create a complete picture based on the information it already has, which may be scant or faulty. This can provide a very limited, narrowly focused, and potentially distorted impression of the other.

Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people. Stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation—almost any characteristic. Many of these groups are entirely a social construct such as race and gender. They may be positive (usually about one’s own group, such as when women suggest they are less likely to complain about physical pain) but are often negative (usually toward other groups, such as when members of a dominant racial group suggest that a subordinate racial group is stupid or lazy). In either case, the stereotype is a generalization that doesn’t take individual differences into account.

Stereotypes can be perpetuated in every agent of socialization from family, school, community and media. In fact, new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, they are recycled from subordinate groups that have assimilated into society and are reused to describe newly subordinate groups. For example, many stereotypes that are currently used to characterize Black people were used earlier in American history to characterize Irish and Eastern European immigrants. While cultural and other differences do exist among the various American racial and ethnic groups, many of the views we have of such groups are unfounded and hence are stereotypes. An example of the stereotypes that white people have of other groups appears in Figure 8.1.1 "Perceptions by Non-Latino white Respondents of the Intelligence of white and Black Americans", in which white respondents in the General Social Survey (GSS), a recurring survey of a random sample of the US population, are less likely to think Blacks are intelligent than they are to think whites are intelligent.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Perceptions by Non-Latino white Respondents of the Intelligence of white and Black Americans. (CC BY 2.0; Data from General Social Survey)

Explaining Prejudice

Prejudice refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group. A prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside actual experience. Prejudice may be based on a person's political affiliation, sex, gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, language, nationality, criminal background, wealth, race, ethnicity, or other personal characteristic. The discussion in this section will largely focus on racial prejudice.

The 1970 documentary, Eye of the Storm, illustrates the way in which prejudice develops, by showing how defining one category of people as superior (children with blue eyes) results in prejudice against people who are not part of the favored category; Jane Elliot, then a 3rd grade teacher, conducted her "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise to give her students a difficult, hands-on experience with prejudice and discrimination.

Note

The Blue Eye Experiment highlights how quickly prejudice can be adopted and embedded within a classroom or peers groups without basis. Think about which ways Jane's statements about the children shaped behaviors, values, and beliefs about others and the children's own abilities.

Sociological Explanations of Prejudice

One popular sociological explanation emphasizes conformity and socialization and is called social learning theory. In this view, people who are prejudiced are merely conforming to the culture in which they grow up, and prejudice is the result of socialization from parents, peers, the news media, and other various aspects of their culture. Supporting this view, studies have found that people tend to become more prejudiced when they move to areas where people are very prejudiced and less prejudiced when they move to locations where people are less prejudiced (Aronson, 2008). If people in the South today continue to be more prejudiced than those outside the South, as we discuss later, even though legal segregation ended more than four decades ago, the influence of their culture on their socialization may help explain these beliefs.

Another explanation of stereotypes and prejudice focuses on supposed cultural deficiencies of people of color (Murray, 1984). These deficiencies include a failure to value hard work and, for African Americans, a lack of strong family ties, and are said to account for the poverty and other problems facing these minorities. As we saw earlier, more than half of non-Latino whites think that Blacks’ poverty is due to their lack of motivation and willpower. Ironically some scholars find support for this cultural deficiency view in the experience of many Asian Americans, whose success is often attributed to their culture’s emphasis on hard work, educational attainment, and strong family ties (Min, 2005). If that is true, these scholars say, then the lack of success of other people of color stems from the failure of their own cultures to value these attributes.

How accurate is the cultural deficiency argument? Whether people of color have “deficient” cultures remains hotly debated (Bonilla-Silva, 2009). Many social scientists find little or no evidence of cultural problems in minority communities and say the belief in cultural deficiencies is an example of symbolic racism that blames the victim. Citing survey evidence, they say that poor people of color value work and education for themselves and their children at least as much as wealthier white people do (Holland, 2011; Muhammad, 2007). Yet other social scientists, including those sympathetic to the structural problems facing people of color, believe that certain cultural problems do exist, but they are careful to say that these cultural problems arise out of the structural problems.

In these two studies, we can see how the deficit theory can impact children even at the earliest ages. In the landmark Yale study by Gilliam (2016) the findings reveal that when expecting challenging behaviors, teachers gazed longer at Black children, especially Black boys. The teachers indicated that they looked for and expected problematic behavior from Black boys. Moreover, Gregory and Robert (2017) found that teacher's suspend Black children three times more than White children for similar situations. This suggests that Black students are being treated differently based on race. The researcher concluded that teachers that come with deficit thinking, believing that Black boys have a tendency toward disruption or violence and who are known to be lenient in disciplining White children compounds the issue that Black children are being "pushed" out of the education system at a young age.

The Changing Nature of Prejudice

Although racial and ethnic prejudice still exists in the United States, its nature has changed during the past half-century. Studies of these changes focus on whites’ perceptions of African Americans. Back in the 1940's and before, an era of overt Jim Crow racism (also called traditional or old-fashioned racism) prevailed, not just in the South but in the entire nation. This racism involved blatant bigotry, firm beliefs in the need for segregation, and the view that Blacks were biologically inferior to whites. In the early 1940's, for example, more than half of all whites thought that Blacks were less intelligent than whites, more than half favored segregation in public transportation, more than two-thirds favored segregated schools, and more than half thought whites should receive preference over Blacks in employment hiring (Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, & Krysan, 1997).

The Nazi experience and then the civil rights movement led whites to reassess their views, and Jim Crow racism gradually waned. Few whites believe today that African Americans are biologically inferior, and few favor segregation. So few whites now support segregation and other Jim Crow views that national surveys no longer include many of the questions that were asked a half-century ago.

But that does not mean that prejudice has disappeared. Many scholars say that Jim Crow racism has been replaced by a more subtle form of racial prejudice, termed laissez-faire, symbolic, or modern racism, that amounts to a “kinder, gentler, anti Black ideology” that avoids notions of biological inferiority (Bobo, Kluegel, & Smith, 1996). Instead, it involves stereotypes about African Americans, a belief that their poverty is due to their cultural inferiority, and opposition to government policies to help them. Similar views exist about Latinos. In effect, this new form of prejudice blames African Americans and Latinos themselves for their low socioeconomic standing and involves such beliefs that they simply do not want to work hard.

Evidence for this modern form of prejudice is seen in Figure 8.1.2, which presents whites’ responses to two General Social Survey (GSS) questions that asked, respectively, whether African Americans’ low socioeconomic status is due to their lower “in-born ability to learn” or to their lack of “motivation and will power to pull themselves up out of poverty.” While only 8.5 percent of whites attributed Blacks’ status to lower innate intelligence (reflecting the decline of Jim Crow racism), about 48 percent attributed it to their lack of motivation and willpower. Although this reason sounds “kinder” and “gentler” than a belief in Blacks’ biological inferiority, it is still one that blames African Americans for their low socioeconomic status.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Attribution by Non-Latino whites of Blacks’ Low Socioeconomic Status to Blacks’ Low Innate Intelligence and to Their Lack of Motivation to Improve. (CC BY 2.0; Data from General Social Survey)

Types of Active Prejudice

Discrimination

Discrimination in this context refers to the arbitrary denial of rights, privileges, and opportunities to members of these groups. The use of the word arbitrary emphasizes that these groups are being treated unequally not because of their lack of merit but because of their race and ethnicity. Usually prejudice and discrimination go hand-in-hand, but Robert Merton (1949) stressed this is not always so. Sometimes we can be prejudiced and not discriminate, and sometimes we might not be prejudiced and still discriminate.

Institutional Discrimination

Individual discrimination is important to address, but at least as consequential in today’s world is institutional discrimination, or discrimination that pervades the practices of whole institutions, such as housing, medical care, law enforcement, employment, and education. This type of discrimination does not just affect a few isolated people of color. Instead, it affects large numbers of individuals simply because of their race or ethnicity. Sometimes institutional discrimination is also based on gender, disability, and other characteristics.

The bottom line is this: Institutions can discriminate even if they do not intend to do so. Consider height requirements for police. Before the 1970s, police forces around the United States commonly had height requirements, say five feet ten inches. As women began to want to join police forces in the 1970s, many found they were too short. The same was true for people from some racial/ethnic backgrounds, such as Latinos, whose stature is smaller on the average than that of non-Latino whites. Of course, even many white males were too short to become police officers, but the point is that even more women, and even more men of certain ethnicities, were too short.

This gender and ethnic difference is not, in and of itself, discriminatory as the law defines the term. The law allows for bona fide (good faith) physical qualifications for a job. As an example, we would all agree that someone has to be able to see to be a school bus driver; sight therefore is a bona fide requirement for this line of work. Thus even though people who are blind cannot become school bus drivers, the law does not consider such a physical requirement to be discriminatory.

But were the height restrictions for police work in the early 1970s bona fide requirements? Women and members of certain ethnic groups challenged these restrictions in court and won their cases, as it was decided that there was no logical basis for the height restrictions then in effect. The courts concluded that a person did not have to be five feet ten inches to be an effective police officer. In response to these court challenges, police forces lowered their height requirements, opening the door for many more women, Latino men, and some other men to join police forces (Appier, 1998). Whether police forces back then intended their height requirements to discriminate, or whether they honestly thought their height requirements made sense, remains in dispute. Regardless of the reason, their requirements did discriminate.

Institutional discrimination affects the life chances of children and families of color in many aspects of life today. To illustrate this, we turn briefly to some examples of institutional discrimination that have been the subject of government investigation and scholarly research. A 2012 report from the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity found that biases – including implicit biases – are pervasive across people and institutions. In the educational setting, children from minoritized communities have less access to experienced teachers, advanced coursework, and resources and are also more harshly punished for minor behavioral infractions occurring in the school setting. They are less likely to be identified for and receive special education services, and in some states, school districts with more nonwhite children receive lower funding at any given poverty level than districts with more white children (U.S Department of education, 2017).

Implicit Bias

Sometimes biases exist in people; they’re just more subtle. These are unexamined and sometimes unconscious but real in their consequences. They are automatic, ambiguous, and ambivalent, and nonetheless are biased, unfair, and disrespectful to the belief in equality.

• Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that unconsciously affect our actions, decisions, and understanding.
• Implicit biases can be positive (a preference for something or someone) or negative (an aversion to or fear of something or someone).
• Implicit biases are different from known biases that people may choose to conceal for social or political reasons. In fact, implicit biases often conflict with a person’s explicit and/or declared beliefs.
• Implicit biases are formed over a lifetime as a result of exposure to direct and indirect messages. The media plays a large role in this formation process.
• Implicit biases are pervasive: everyone has them.
• Implicit biases are changeable, but research shows that this process takes time, intention, and training.

Note

Social psychologists have developed several ways to measure this relatively automatic own-group preference, the most famous being the implicit bias test. Take the implicit bias test to explore your own possible biases. Then watch the Kirwan Institute video examine ways teachers bias can create negative impacts for people of color.

Microaggressions

Implicit biases can impact our relationships and interactions with each other in many ways, some of which are described in the research findings listed above. One way that implicit biases can manifest is in the form of microaggressions: subtle verbal or nonverbal insults or denigrating messages communicated toward a marginalized person, often by someone who may be well-intentioned but unaware of the impact their words or actions have on the target.

Microaggressions can be based on any aspect of a marginalized person’s identity (for example, sexuality, religion, or gender). Individual microaggressions may not be devastating to the person experiencing them; however, their cumulative effects over time can be large.

Microaggression Exercise

Microaggressions have been described by many as "small paper cuts" that represent all the times that someone says or does something that marginalizes you because of your cultural frame of reference. Which of these statements is a Microaggression?

• Asking if someone with brown skin has "papers".
• Boys will be boys
• Disabled people are so inspiring
• You don’t act like a normal Black person.
• You’re really pretty for a dark-skinned girl.

If it comes to attention that a Microaggression occurred, from a reflective disposition all involved should consider:

1. Why is the statement problematic- who might be affected by the statement?
2. How might the statement be intended as a compliment?
3. What are ways to be upstanders- someone who recognizes when something is wrong and speaks up to make it right?

Impact of Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Bias

Pervasive implicit bias and microaggressions and constant exposure to racism in both implicit and explicit forms can have cumulative and serious impacts on BIPOC. Researchers are only now beginning to identify and understand some of these impacts. For example, scientists have begun linking prolonged racism-related stress to racial health disparities (West ed link below) such as differences in maternal mortality rates between Black and white women. Other racial health disparities, such as differing rates of asthma and diabetes across racial groups, may also be linked to the stress impact of racism. Stress hormones, while harmless in small doses, are toxic with prolonged exposure, and can cause permanent damage to the nervous, cardiovascular, immune, and endocrine systems.

According to the Academy of Pediatrics (2019), Racism is a core determinant of health. The policy statement from the medical leaders goes on to clarify, "Racism is a social determinant of health that has a profound impact on the health status of children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families". Although progress has been made toward racial equality and equity, the evidence to support the continued negative impact of racism on health and well-being through implicit and explicit biases, institutional structures, and interpersonal relationships is clear. The groundbreaking article goes on to highlight that the social environment that children navigate can undermine health and well being for our most vulnerable children.

In addition to health disparities, the so-called “racial achievement gap” in education has also been attributed at least in part to the presence of implicit bias, stereotypes, and microaggressions. In the 1990's, psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson provided empirical evidence for the impact of stereotype threat on academic performance. The idea behind stereotype threat is that awareness of negative stereotypes about one’s racial group raises stress and self-doubt among students, who then perform worse. Over two decades of data show that stereotype threat is common and consequential. For a summary of this phenomenon and related studies, read the American Psychological Association’s “Research in Action”.

Addressing Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Bias

Institutional

To begin to dismantle structural discrimination the Academy of Pediatrics (2019) suggest the following:

• Acknowledge that educational and health equity is unachievable unless racism is addressed through interdisciplinary partnerships with other organizations that have developed campaigns against racism.
• Advocate for improvements in the quality of education in segregated urban, suburban, and rural communities designed to better optimize vocational attainment and educational milestones for all students.
• Advocate for federal and local policies that support implicit-bias training in schools and robust training of educators in culturally competent classroom management to improve disparities in academic outcomes and disproportionate rates of suspension and expulsion among students of color, reflecting a systemic bias in the educational system.
• Encourage community-level advocacy with members of those communities disproportionately affected by racism to develop policies that advance social justice.
• Advocate for fair housing practices, including access to housing loans and rentals that prohibit the persistence of historic “redlining.”
• Advocate for funding and dissemination of rigorous research that examine the impact of policy changes and community-level interventions on reducing the health effects of racism and other forms of discrimination on youth development.

Individual

Many of the efforts used to address prejudice and intolerance on the individual level involve education, that is, increasing intercultural awareness or sensitizing individuals to difference. However, intolerance is complex, involving not only a cognitive side, but also affective (emotional), behavioral, and structural/political components. One approach for addressing intolerance is contact theory, originally the "contact hypothesis," as developed by US psychologist Gordon Allport (1979). Allport suggested that direct contact between members of different groups – under certain conditions – could lead to reducing prejudice and conflict. The conditions for success he laid out, are that 1) there be equal status between the groups, 2) both groups have common goals for the encounter, 3) both groups focus on cooperation rather than competition, and finally 4) the process be supported by an authority of some kind, such as a government agency. This approach has been used effectively in such conflicts as the relationship between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and in the reconciliation talks between whites and blacks in post-apartheid South Africa. It is the underlying assumption for the benefits derived from school exchanges.

Relying on faulty information leads us to make generalizations that may be far removed from reality. We can overcome the distortion of the "single story", as Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie puts it, in a number of ways (Adichie, 2009). The most effective antidote is to gain greater real knowledge of other cultures through direct contact. That can come from travel, study abroad, service learning, online exchanges, or informal means of making contact. Following news reports on what's happening outside our immediate area can also be valuable, particularly if we seek out reliable, objective reporting. What can be helpful in that regard is to try to find multiple sources of information. Another way to gain insight into other cultures is through stories, told in novels, autobiographies, or movies. The more perspectives we have on a given culture, the less likely it is that we will extrapolate from a single experience to make generalizations about an entire group.

Research by Allport and others has shown that bringing groups together into contact with one another does not in itself provide a guarantee of improved attitudes or enlightened views vis-à-vis the other group. Allport’s contact theory shows that the context and conditions of the encounter will shape success or failure. Even encounters when conducted under ideal and carefully supervised conditions may still have mixed results. That might include benefits for some students and adverse reactions from others, including reactions bordering on culture shock.

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Attributions

Johnson, Shaheen. (Long Beach City College)

Rodriguez, Lisette. (Long Beach City College)

Introduction to Sociology 2e (OpenStax) (CC BY 4.0)

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