Prejudice and discrimination can take many forms, from subtle to extreme. Prejudice involves unfavorable attitudes toward social groups, while discrimination involves harmful actions directed at those groups. Studies have found discrimination in areas like housing (LaPiere, 1934) and implicit biases in automatic cognition (IAT). Prejudice can be based on attributes such as sex, race, age, sexual orientation, and disability status. It may take overt forms like hate speech or physical attack, or more subtle forms like tokenism or reluctance to help. Discrimination has damaging effects and is illegal in many places, but implicit or unconscious biases still exist and can influence behavior.

1. Prejudice and Discrimination

2. PrejudiceLiterally means ‘prejudgment’Unfavourable attitude towards a social group and its members

3. DiscriminationHarmful ACTIONS directed toward the persons or groups who are targets of prejudice

4. LaPiere (1934)Chinese American couple visited 250 hotels, caravan parks, tourist homes and restaurants.Refused service in only oneLittle prejudice?After returning home, 128 of the establishments were asked “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?”92% No, 7% Uncertain, depends on circumstances, 1% Yes

5. Types of prejudiceSexism: almost all research on sexism focuses on prejudice and discrimination against women.“The typical woman is seen as nice but incompetent, the typical man as competent but maybe not so nice” (Fiske, 1998)Traditional sexism can sometimes be difficult to detect now that is now illegal and unacceptable.Not in all countries: Taliban – women denied the right to an education, in Nigeria women have been sentenced to death by stoning for infidelity, and in many cultures there are restrictions placed on women's choices about their bodies and reproduction. Klasen (1994): sex-selective abortions and infanticide have led to 76 million'missing women'.

6. RacismDiscrimination on the basis of race or ethnicityGenocide is universal: in recent times it has been carried out in, for example, Germany, Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda

7. New RacismBecause explicit and blatant racism is illegal and thus socially censored, it is now more difficult to find. New racism involves three components:Denial – ‘there’s no racism anymore’ Antagonism to demands – ‘why should the government apologise?’Resentment about special favours – ‘why should there be affirmative action?’

8. Detecting New RacismUnobtrusive measures –Social distance - how close, psychologically or physically, people are willing to get to one another.Another context in which underlying prejudice can emerge is when prejudiced behaviourdoes not obviously look like prejudice. Rogers and Prentice-Dunn (1981) had White or Black confederates insult White participants (in Alabama), who then had an opportunity to administer a shock to the confederate. Angered Whites > Black confederate. In another condition where no insults were forthcoming, participants gave < shocks to the Black confederate than to the White confederate.

9. Prejudice can also surface inadvertently in people's relatively automatic cognition.E.g. IAT.The general principle underlying this procedure for detecting prejudice is automaticity The notion of automaticity is related to the idea that categories and their stereotypical attributes are implicitly linked in memory.

10. AgeismMitchell (2002) identifies four distinct generational stereotypes Traditionalists (1925 and 1945), are practical; patient, loyal and hard-working; respectful of authority; and rule followers. Baby boomers (1946 and 1960), are optimistic; value teamwork and cooperation; are ambitious; and are workaholic. Generation X (1961 and 1980) are skeptical, self-reliant risk-takers who balance work and personal life. Millennials (1981 and the present) are hopeful; they value meaningful work, diversity and change; and are technologically savvy.

11. Discrimination against homosexuals In general, since the late 1960s there has been a progressive liberalisation of attitudes towards homosexuals. However, the AIDS epidemic has, since the mid-1980s, whipped up negative attitudes in some sections of society towards homosexuals In California the existing right for same-sex couples to marry was actually overturned in 2008 –in which 52 per cent of Californians voted 'yes' on 'Proposition 8', actively denying homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals.

12. Discrimination on the basis of physical or mental handicap Overt discrimination against people on the basis of physical handicap is now illegal and socially unacceptable in most Western societies. The improvement of attitudes over the past twenty-five years towards physical handicap has not extended to mental/psychological handicap.

13. Allport’s Scales of PrejudiceScale 1 - AntilocutionScale 2 - AvoidanceScale 3 - DiscriminationScale 4 - Physical attackScale 5 - Extermination

14. AntilocutionA majority group freely make jokes about a minority group.Speech is in terms of negative stereotypes and negative images (hate speech).Commonly seen as harmless by the majority, but it sets the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice

15. AvoidancePeople in a minority group are actively avoided by members of the majority group. No direct harm may be intended but harm is done through isolation

16. DiscriminationMinority group is discriminated against by denying them opportunities and services.Putting prejudice into action.

17. Physical AttackMajority group vandalise minority group’s property and carry out violent attacks on individuals or groups.

18. ExterminationMajority group seeks extermination of the minority group and attempt to eliminate the entire group of people

19. Forms of discriminationThree types of behaviour that do not look obviously like discrimination but nevertheless may conceal underlying prejudices: reluctance to help, tokenism and reverse discrimination.

20. Reluctance to helpStudies show that reluctance to help is manifested only in certain conditions: specifically, when such reluctance can be attributed to some factor other than prejudice.Gaertner and Dovidio's (1977) found White participants were more reluctant to help a Black than a White confederate faced with an emergency, but only when they believed that other potential helpers were present.

21. TokenismTokenism refers to a relatively small or trivial positive act, a token, towards members of a minority group.Invoked to deflect accusations of prejudice and as a justification for declining to engage in larger and more meaningful positive acts or for subsequently engaging in discrimination.Criticism of the token employment of minorities by organisations that then fail to take more fundamental and important steps towards equal opportunities.Tokenism at this level can have damaging consequences for the self-esteem of those who are employed as token minorities

22. Reverse DiscriminationPeople with residual prejudiced attitudes may sometimes go out of their way to favour members of a group against which they are prejudiced more than members of other groups.For the researcher, the challenge is to know when behaviour that goes out of its way to favour a minority is reverse discrimination or is actually a genuine attempt to rectify disadvantage

23. Stereotype threatAwareness of judgments from others and treated stereotypically on tasks that really matter to them. Thus, worried that through their behaviour they may confirm the stereotypes.

24. Self fulfilling propheciesExpectations and assumptions about a person that influence our interaction with that person and eventually change their behaviour in line with our expectationsThe most famous study of self-fulfilling prophecy is Rosenthal and Jacobson's (1968) classic experiment on teachers' expectations in the classroom.

26. Explanations of Prejudice and DiscriminationMere exposure effectFrustration-aggression hypothesisAuthoritarian personality (Adorno)Social dominanceBelief congruence