Instructor Notes

The principles of social psychology, including the ABCs—affect, behavior, and cognition—apply to the study of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, and social psychologists have expended substantial research efforts studying these concepts (Figure 11.2). The cognitive component in our perceptions of group members is the stereotype—the positive or negative beliefs that we hold about the characteristics of social group. We may decide that “French people are romantic,” that “old people are incompetent,” or that “college professors are absent minded.” And we may use those beliefs to guide our actions toward people from those groups. In addition to our stereotypes, we may also develop prejudice—an unjustifiable negative attitude toward an outgroup or toward the members of that outgroup. Prejudice can take the form of disliking, anger, fear, disgust, discomfort, and even hatred—the kind of affective states that can lead to behavior such as the gay bashing you just read about. Our stereotypes and our prejudices are problematic because they may create discrimination—unjustified negative behaviors toward members of outgroups based on their group membership.

Although violence against members of outgroups is fortunately rare, stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination nevertheless influence people’s lives in a variety of ways. Stereotypes influence our academic performance (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007), the careers that we chose to follow (Zhang, Schmader, & Forbes, 2009), our experiences at work (Fiske & Lee, 2008), and the amount that we are paid for the work that we do (Jackson, 2011; Wood & Eagly, 2010).

Stereotypes and prejudice have a pervasive and often pernicious influence on our responses to others, and also in some cases on our own behaviors. To take one example, social psychological research has found that our stereotypes may in some cases lead to stereotype threat—performance decrements that are caused by the knowledge of cultural stereotypes. Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) found that when women were reminded of the (untrue) stereotype that “women are poor at math,” they performed more poorly on math tests than when they were not reminded of the stereotype, and other research has found stereotype threat in many other domains as well. We’ll consider the role of stereotype threat in more detail later in this chapter.

This week contains a number of “Major Points” with videos and discussion and assignment prompts to support the topics. This chapter contains an abundance of content. As an instructor, you will want to choose just 1 or 2 videos and perhaps just a few of the “Major Points” to cover and meet the learning outcomes of your course. You may wish to reference the “How to use this Resource” section for ideas on how to tailor your course offering.

Readings

Chapter 11: Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination in Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition.

Teaching Materials

• Major Points
• Selected video presentations (choose 1 or 2)
• Class Discussion

Student Tasks

• Online Discussion forum
• Assignment: Implicit Bias (IAT)
• Chapter Quiz (Available upon request)

Major Points

1. Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination
   1. Cognition
   2. Affect
   3. Behavior
2. Social Stereotypes
   1. Cognitive Biases
   2. Outgroup homogeneity effect
   3. Ingroup favoritism
   4. Ultimate Attribution error
   5. Stereotype threat
3. Prejudice
   1. IAT and Bogus Pipeline method
   2. Authoritarianism
   3. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)
   4. Self-concern
4. Discrimination
   1. Institutionalized
      • “Sixties Scoop” Residential Schools in Canada
   2. Socio-economic
   3. Blatant acts
   4. Non-verbal (subtle)
5. Reducing Discrimination
   1. Change social norms
   2. Contact hypothesis
   3. Jigsaw classroom
   4. Superordinate goals
   5. Common ingroup identity

Videos

YouTube

How racial bias works — and how to disrupt it | Jennifer L. Eberhardt by TED is licensed under a Standard YouTube license. (14:17)

Interrupting gender bias through meeting culture | Selena Rezvani | TEDxHartford by TEDx Talks \

Unlearning your anti-Indigenous bias by CityNews is licensed under a Standard YouTube license. (4:22)

Discussion

Assignment

Content Attributions

The instructor notes are adapted from Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition by Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani and Dr. Hammond Tarry which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.