Prejudice

Prejudice, said Mark Twain, is “the very ink with which history is written”. It is the inevitable consequence of dividing the world into “us” and “them” – what psychologists call “ingroups” and “outgroups” – whether in the form of tribes, faiths, nations or even football teams. We are “hardwired” to think favourably of our own group – known as ingroup bias – and unfavourably of others – known as prejudice.  

There are countless forms of prejudice in the world. Racism and sexism are perhaps the most common, but there is also widespread prejudice on the basis of class, age, sexuality, disability and religious affiliation, to name but a few. In all of these cases, prejudice forms from a preconceived belief in the superiority of one’s own group over another; the behavioural manifestation of this belief is termed discrimination.

At its core, prejudice is a matter of categorisation. It’s about how we divide up the world in ours heads, grouping things together for ease of cognition. We use these categories to define ourselves as well as those around us. Thus, “I” may be male, European, young, Buddhist, vegetarian, teetotal, and so on, while “They” are anything outside this: female or Asian or elderly or Christian or alcoholic, and so on. Clearly, there are innumerable groups in society, some of which we’re a part, others we are not. Crucially, some of these categories are stigmatised, which marks their members as inherently inferior to the dominant group. (In Ancient Greece, a stigma was literally a mark, like a tattoo, that was cut or burnt into the skin of criminals, slaves or other disgraced persons.)

So, prejudice arises when (a) we put people into categories, and (b) some of these categories come with a social stigma, meaning their members are seen as lower status. And since some categories, such as race and sex, are so obvious to us that we use them chronically – that is, continually, without thinking – so prejudice comes to be ingrained in society. Let us consider these two cases in more detail.

Racism is prejudice against someone based on their race or ethnicity. In the past, racial prejudice was largely overt and blatant, meaning it was expressed openly in the form of negative stereotypes and derogatory language. Identifying a particular race as lazy, stupid, greedy or dishonest is an example of this form of discrimination, which is often referred to as old-fashioned racism – the type your grandparents may have used. In the West, such explicit racist attitudes are now socially taboo, and it is therefore tempting to conclude that racism is on the decline. However, there is a second, more pervasive form of racism that is implicit or unconscious, which psychologists refer to as aversive racism.

Aversive racism is a distinctly modern phenomenon. It is characterised by the presence of both egalitarian attitudes and negative feelings towards particular minorities. In other words, it is a form of racism that persists (unconsciously) even when we know racism to be wrong. This dissonance provokes feelings of shame and guilt, which we seek to suppress by avoiding triggering encounters and concealing our “true” emotions. And since people rarely admit to this form of prejudice, it is difficult to investigate.[1]

Sexism is prejudice against someone based on their sex or gender. Though sexism can affect anyone, it is typically directed at women and girls, whether overtly (as in sexual harassment) or covertly (as in workplace inequality). Around the world, sexual discrimination has been observed in almost every cultural sphere, from politics and education to legal justice and employment. At its most extreme, it can lead to the murder, rape and mutilation of women, girls and new-born babies.

Like racism, sexism comprises two distinct strains: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism refers to blatant expressions of sexual prejudice, such as the view that women are irrational or incompetent in comparison to men. This underlying prejudice is manifested in myriad forms of discrimination, from the gender pay gap to female infanticide. Benevolent sexism, in contrast, refers to sexist attitudes that are subjectively positive, such as the reverence of women as wives, mothers and homemakers, and as the objects of male affection. Although these attitudes may appear harmless to their holder, they are in fact detrimental to gender equality, since they restrict women to particular roles (such as mother, lover, homemaker) and thus limit their personal and professional opportunities.

Benevolent sexism can be difficult to counteract, since it is often conflated with tradition and politeness. An obvious example is modern-day chivalry, which may take the form of men holding the door open for women or paying the bill in a restaurant. For many people – both men and women – this is simply “the done thing” – an unquestioned, apparently harmless, social norm born of kindness and consideration. However, traditions such as these are rooted in historical ideas of women as the “weaker” or “fairer” sex, and as such serve to perpetuate these sexist notions. This ambivalence can lead to disagreements between people over what constitutes sexism in today’s world. Furthermore, it is possible for people to hold both hostile and benevolent sexist views simultaneously, such as a man who feels threatened by women in the workplace but venerates them in the home. This may explain why sexism is so hard to stamp out.

Racism and sexism are just two of the many forms of prejudice that exist in society. And since all individuals belong to numerous, fluid and often overlapping groups, they may be subject to multiple modes of discrimination acting simultaneously – a phenomenon known as intersectionality.

According to the contact hypothesis, developed by the social psychologist Gordon Allport, overcoming such prejudice depends on establishing closer relations between ingroups and outgroups. Above all else, these groups must be interdependent, working together to achieve common goals. Only then, Allport argues, can the stain of prejudice be erased.

[1] The psychologists Samuel Gaertner and Leonard Bickman found one way around this in a now-famous 1971 study.

Social Categorisation

In the world, there are a lot of things. Things like penguins and guavas and diamonds and house music and double-decker buses and so on and so forth. Keeping track of all this “stuff” takes time and energy, resources which could be better spent on other things, things like eating or sleeping or hunting or dating or posting cat videos on YouTube. For this reason, when confronted with the vast and ever-widening array of “things” in the world, we place them into groups. Bananas, oranges and apples become “fruit”. Elephants, pandas and walruses become “animals”. Tables, chairs and wardrobes become “furniture”. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to pass the fruit bowl than it is to ask someone to pass the bowl containing bananas, oranges, apples, pears, and maybe a few mouldy grapes. Likewise, it’s a lot easier to refer to “weather” or “jobs” or “sports” or “countries” than it is to list all the thousands of objects, events or concepts that comprise these groups. The brain loves a shortcut, and placing things into groups – categorisation – is exactly that (even if it sometimes gets us into trouble – more on this later).

Categorisation can be defined as “the process of understanding what something is by knowing what other things it is equivalent to, and what other things it is different from” (McGarty, 1999:1). In other words, categorisation is about similarities and differences: when two or more things are similar or interconnected, we place them in the same category; when these things are different or unconnected, we place them in different categories. It is important to note that things are not always different or always the same; rather, this depends on the nature of the categorisation. For example, carrots and oranges may be categorised differently (as vegetables and fruits), or similarly (as food, or organic matter, or orange things). Categories are hierarchical: some are very specific, while others are much more broad – just think of the category of “thing”.

Categories are not rigid. Just as human perception is fluid and flexible, so categories may likewise have porous boundaries. Some things are easier to categorise than others. Most people would have no problem identifying a cabbage as a vegetable and an apple as a fruit. But what about tomatoes? Or rhubarb? Or aubergines? The same is true for almost every other category: some members are easy to categorise, while others are more difficult. The more typical a member, the easier it is to categorise, and vice versa. So a dog is a typical mammal, as most people would acknowledge, while a duck-billed platypus is a wholly atypical one. (In fact, when the first European naturalists encountered a preserved platypus, they dismissed it as a fake, cobbled together from bits of other animals.) We call the most typical members of a category (like dogs and apples and cabbages) prototypes. These are easy to bring to mind and quick to categorise, unlike atypical members (like tomatoes and platypuses), which take time and effort.

When applied to social categories, we often refer to prototypes as stereotypes (literally, a solid or rigid type). Stereotyping, like all categorisation, is a heuristic – a mental shortcut that reduces complex judgements to simple rules of thumb. We use stereotypes for two main reasons. First, by “filling in the blanks" for people we know little about, they save us time and energy. And second, by providing a framework for our perception of the world, they help us to predict what others will do, thereby reducing uncertainty. This sort of categorisation is fundamental to the way we, as humans, create meaning.

Categorisation is pervasive, which means it can influence our thinking even when we are trying to think systematically. In other words, some categories are activated without our awareness. For example, categories such as race, age and gender are so common that their use becomes automated, a phenomenon known as chronic accessibility. Similarly, we tend to categorise based on what we encounter first (known as temporal primacy), and what stands out most to us (known as perceptual salience). Imagine, for example, that the first dog you ever encountered was a rabid, ferocious, bloodthirsty poodle – this now forms the basis of your canine template. Likewise, hearing about a rabid-poodle attack can make us more scared of dogs in general, since stories of poodles attacking humans are particularly notable, or salient. In all of these cases, categorisation occurs unconsciously, shaping our judgement without us even knowing it.

We use social categories to form a general impression about the people we meet and interact with. How exactly we do this has been much studied by social psychologists, beginning in the 1940s with the work of Solomon Asch, and continuing to this day with research by Alexander Todorov. There are several troubling consequences of social categorisation. When categories are formed on the basis of race or ethnicity, for example, stereotyping can easily lead to prejudice. Even when such stereotypes are apparently positive – for example, ethnicity X is good at business; ethnicity Y is good at maths – they still reinforce social distinctions rather than transcending them. Similarly, judgements that are inconsistent with negative stereotypes can actually serve to perpetuate such stereotypes. For example, lauding a woman who can drive well or a man who can cook presents these cases as exceptions to the categorical rule, which itself remains intact. Only when enough such exceptions are registered can the overall stereotype be challenged, leading to a shift in the category prototype.

Another consequence of social categorisation is stereotype threat – the fear of conforming to a negative stereotype of a group to which one belongs. This threat can cause one to underperform on tasks in the threatened domain. In the case of the female driver, for instance, being confronted with the stereotype that “women can’t drive” can itself provoke impaired performance. The same is true for other groups, and other negative stereotypes.

It is clear, then, that social categorisation is not an inert or neutral process. Rather, it is variable and value-laden, owing to the countless cognitive factors that determine what we categorise, why, and when. These categories structure our experience of ourselves, and the world around us. Just as we create categories, categories create us.

Conformity

Look where you’re going!

Don’t talk with your mouth full!  

Say “Cheese”!

What do these various imperatives have in common? They are all examples of social norms.

Norms are templates for acceptable conduct. They tell us how we should behave in a given situation - everything from walking down the street to running a business. Queuing is a social norm. So is tipping your waiter. So is minding your Ps and Qs. Swearing, belching and nose-picking are all proscribed by social norms; bowing, wearing a tie and flushing the toilet are all sanctioned. Some norms – such as the incest taboo – are universal, while others are context-specific: class, culture and gender are prominent variables.

How and why norms form has long been of interest to social psychologists, beginning with the work of Muzafer Sherif (1935). Social norms do not always reflect our individual or private opinion. It is perfectly possible to hold a public attitude that is at odds with our personal one. Personally, you might think that shaking hands is unhygienic or outdated, but publicly, you go along with it, upholding the socially norm. How many of us went along with our peers at school, picking on other students or smoking behind the bike shed, even when we felt inside it was wrong? These are examples of conformity.

Generally speaking, conformity is incidental, which means it’s not deliberate. This distinguishes conformity from other forms of social influence, such as compliance, persuasion and obedience. The first major psychological study of conformity was carried out by Solomon Asch in 1951. 

Sherif’s and Asch’s experiments reflect two different explanations for conformity. The first, relevant to Sherif’s study, is informational influence, where people conform to a group norm in order to gain information. (This occurs when someone is unsure of their own opinion, and needs more data to make a judgement.) The second explanation, evident in Asch’s experiment, is normative influence, where people conform in order to gain acceptance or avoid exclusion. (This occurs when someone is sure of their own opinion, but doesn’t want to risk being “the odd one out”.)

Conformity can be constructive,[1] but it can also be dangerous. This was famously demonstrated by John Darley and Bibb Latané, in one of the most widely cited experiments in the history of psychology: the smoke-filled room. In the experiment, a number of university students were invited to share their thoughts about urban life. Those who agreed to take part were asked to first fill out some forms in a waiting room prior to being interviewed. As they did so, smoke began to enter the room through a small vent in the wall. After four minutes, the smoke was sufficient to affect one’s vision and breathing.

When the participants were alone, most of them investigated the smoke and informed someone about it. However, Darley and Latané were more interested in how people reacted when others were present. For the second phase of the experiment, the students were joined in the waiting room by two undercover actors, who had been instructed not to react to the smoke. At most, they would shrug their shoulders before returning to their forms. What happened next was significant. In the words of Darley and Latané, “only one of the ten subjects…reported the smoke. The other nine subjects stayed in the waiting room for the full six minutes while it continued to fill up with smoke. … They coughed, rubbed their eyes, and opened the window – but they did not report the smoke.”

The smoke-filled room study is an example of the so-called bystander effect, which holds that individuals are less likely to help others when other people are present. Though this theory has been widely criticised in recent years, it has become part of psychological lore, and continues to be implicated in tragedies around the world.

Social influence works not only on individuals but also on groups, shaping the norm itself. This can be seen in research on group polarisation and groupthink. Group polarisation is a process through which a social norm becomes more extreme, or polarised, among people with similar beliefs and attitudes. Imagine, for example, a group of environmental activists discussing the climate crisis. Naturally, people will share their ideas and findings with other group members, resulting in informational influence. At the same time, people will be motivated to “fit in” with others, expressing public attitudes in line with the group – this is normative influence. Together, these pressures cause people to converge on the group norm, which in turn causes the consensus of the group to become stronger, shifting the norm to a more extreme position. Group polarisation is particularly prevalent in political groups, social media, juries, and other opinion-based assemblies. In extreme cases, group polarisation can give way to groupthink, where the desire for conformity results in irrational or immoral decision making.

Groupthink was first studied in the early 1970s by Irving Janis, who identified three broad symptoms of the problem: close-mindedness (such as dismissing any ideas that might challenge the group’s thinking); heightened pressure to conform (such as through self-censorship); and overestimation of the group’s value (such as a sense of moral and intellectual infallibility). According to Janis, groupthink occurs when the cohesiveness of a group is so high that there is no scope for disagreement or dissent. This is particularly common in high-stress situations, and in contexts where the flow of information is disrupted. The consequences of groupthink can be catastrophic. A classic example is the 1986 Challenger disaster, in which NASA’s high cohesiveness, overconfidence and close-mindedness contributed to fundamentally flawed decision making, and led, ultimately, to the deaths of all seven astronauts on board. (Groupthink was also evident in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 and the 2016 US presidential election, among other events.)

Conformity, then, is morally ambiguous – both opportunity and constraint. On the one hand, conforming helps us to learn “the rules of society”, which in turn reduces risk and disruption. On the other hand, excessive conformity can give way to coercion, corruption and complacency, which in turn can lead to disaster.

[1] Public smoking laws = positive conformity? https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_conformity_can_be_good_and_bad_for_society