In this video I discuss how our tendency to use heuristics, shortcuts, and assumptions to fill in the gaps in our knowledge reveals our reliance on stereotypes to understand the world. These can lead us to prejudice or discrimination when we make assumptions about people based on their groups. The Ultimate Attribution Error refers to our tendency to apply dispositional explanations to entire groups of people while minimal group theory suggests that we can form social groups easily and on the basis of trivial classifications. Our tendency to think in terms of in–group bias and out–group homogeneity can influence our judgments of others and in extreme cases, lead to dehumanization of out-group members.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel to see future videos! Have questions or topics you’d like to see covered in a future video? Let me know by commenting or sending me an email!

Check out my full psychology guide: Master Introductory Psychology: http://amzn.to/2eTqm5s

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Michael Corayer and this is Psych Exam Review. In this video we’re going to look at stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. So in the previous video we looked at impression formation and we saw with thin slices theory the idea that we can form impressions of people very rapidly, we can do this on the basis of very little information. This is because we use heuristics; we take shortcuts, we make assumptions, we fill in the gaps in our knowledge automatically. And this means that we rely on stereotypes.

So stereotypes are the expectations that we have and the inferences that we make based on categories. Now for many of the categories that we think about this isn’t really a problem. So you have stereotypes related to chairs; you can see some new object you’ve never seen before and safely assume that you can sit in it. Now this is based on your experience with other chairs, not this particular individual object in front of you right now. But this stereotype that you are relying on isn’t really that harmful. Where this becomes a problem is when we start making inferences and assumptions about people based on the groups that they’re in.

This can lead us to prejudice. So prejudice refers to where we form attitudes or we evaluate people based on their group membership. So I have a stereotype that students from a particular school are arrogant and then I meet someone who says he went to that school and I decide I don’t like him because of that. That’s an example of prejudice. I’m evaluating this person based on the group that he’s in and not on his individual behavior.

Now I might also engage in discrimination and this is where my behavior is being influenced. My behavior towards this person is influenced by his group membership. So if, for instance, I decided not to hire this person because he went to this school and I have a stereotype about people from that school that would be an example of discrimination. So why does this happen?

Well, one way we can think about this relates to the fundamental attribution error that I talked about in a previous video. And if you thought the fundamental attribution error was a great name for a theory we’re going to go one better here with the Ultimate Attribution Error. The ultimate attribution error involves making the fundamental attribution error and then applying it to an entire group of people. So the fundamental attribution error is where we assume disposition as the explanation for someone’s behavior. I see something happen and I want to know, why did this happen? I have a tendency to focus on the person, to say it happened because this person’s disposition is the cause and I tend to ignore situational factors. And the ultimate attribution error is when I then apply that disposition to all members of the individual’s group. I assume everybody from that person’s group has the same disposition.

So for example, let’s imagine, that I see a Korean person helping someone and I want to explain this behavior and I might have a tendency to make this fundamental attribution error. I might assume that he’s helping someone because he’s a kind person; that would be a dispositional explanation. But then I might go further and assume that all Koreans are kind people. In that case, I’m making this ultimate attribution error; I’m forming a stereotype about the dispositions of the entire group. Now I’m more likely to do this if I don’t have much information to go on. If I know very little about this group, if this is the only Korean person I’ve ever seen, then it’s very likely that this will happen, right? Because the gaps in my knowledge will be very large and so the gaps that I’m filling in are going to be substantial. I don’t know much of anything about Koreans and so the one thing I might know is I saw a Korean person helping somebody once, so I’m going to go on the assumption that Koreans are kind people, right? If it’s a group, however, that I have lots of information about, if I’ve interacted with hundreds of Koreans, then I’m likely to recognize that they, of course, vary as individuals and some of them are kind people and some not so much, right?

So we can keep this in mind when we are doing things like traveling or meeting new groups of people because you really do become a representative for your groups, especially if it’s a group that the people don’t have much information about. So if you’re traveling somewhere fairly remote then you might be a representative for your race or for your culture or for your nation or for the school that you go to. So if people have never met anyone from your school before and they have no information about it then they might make this ultimate attribution error; they might assume things about your disposition and then assume that that applies to anyone else from your school. We’re all members of many different groups, so how do we form these groups?

Well, one way we can think about this brings us to the research of Henri Tajfel, who proposed minimal group theory. What Tajfel suggested was that we form groups effortlessly; we almost automatically form groups on the basis of even very trivial classifications. He demonstrated this in the study where he had boys look at artwork by either Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky and they rated some of this artwork and then he put them into a group. He said “you’re more of a Klee fan” or “you’re more of a Kandinsky fan” and these are artists with very similar styles. So here’s a painting by Paul Klee and here’s a painting by Kandinsky and you can see they’re fairly similar. And so if you like the art of Paul Klee you probably also like Kandinsky; so it’s a trivial classification. And the way that the boys were put into the groups, they were told they were based on Klee or Kandinsky’s artwork, but it was actually random. So there really was no difference between the groups of boys and then they were given some tasks where they were able to distribute points that were worth money. And so they were going to get paid based on how many points they had at the end and they got to choose, they got to choose how these points were distributed amongst the two groups.

Now you might think that they would maximize points for everyone; get the most money from the researchers as possible; however we could get the greatest number of points for everyone involved then that would be the best thing to do. But that’s not what the boys did. And so then you might think well, maybe they would maximize things for their own group. They’d want to distribute points in a way where if they’re in the Klee group, that the Klee group gets as many points as possible. Or if they’re in the Kandinsky group, that the Kandinsky group gets as many points as possible. But actually they didn’t do this either. What they did was they picked schemes that maximize the difference between the groups. They wanted, not to get as many points as possible, they wanted to get more points than the other group. They wanted to win, right? So they wouldn’t accept getting three points and the other group getting four; they’d actually rather get two points and the other group only gets one, something like that.

And so they wanted to get more relative to the other group and this shows our tendency for what’s known as in–group bias; we show a preference for our own group. We show preference for members of our own group and we want to see our own group do well. We want to see our group do better than other groups. Now if this happens with even these minimal groups that are formed on the basis of trivial classifications, what about difficult to join groups? What about groups we have to really make an effort to become a member?

And from what we’ve already learned in this unit about cognitive dissonance and about social pressures like conformity and compliance, you might not be surprised to learn that these difficult-to-join groups can actually be more appealing to us. When there are barriers to entry, when it’s hard to become a member of a group, this can increase the appeal of the group and it can also serve to strengthen the solidarity of the group. One way we can see this is through the use of hazing or harsh initiation rites that some groups have. So the sort of classic example of initiation rites for groups are fraternities and sororities.

Now you could imagine that if you could just walk up to a fraternity and become a member then you might check it out one weekend; go over to the fraternity house and stop in at a party, meet a few people and say “oh, you know, this seems okay” and then go along on your way. But if you had to endure weeks of rituals, rites, and even ridicule, you might feel differently about this party. You might think “I did all of that for this? And this idea might lead to the insufficient justification that we talked about with cognitive dissonance. So you might start convincing yourself that actually this party is really great and these people are really wonderful. “I’m really glad that I suffered in order to get to be here”.

Now we could also have a tendency to think about out-groups, to think about members of out-groups, as all being similar. So it’s not just that we have preferential treatment for members of our own group this in-group bias, but we also have a tendency to recognize within our groups that there’s variation and individuality. So when you think about students at your school, you might recognize that, of course, they have different preferences, different behaviors, different beliefs, different thoughts, and you recognize the individuality of your in-group members. But if you start thinking about students at another school, you might have a tendency to think that they’re all more similar. This is known as out–group homogeneity; this is the tendency to think that members of other groups have similar preferences, similar behaviors, and similar thoughts. Thinking that they are all alike.

Now part of this is that we have detailed knowledge of our in-group. We know the individuals. We don’t have as much knowledge of the out-group. But we also have this tendency to ignore the differences that we might actually see in the out-group and instead think that they are really all the same. At the extreme of this type of behavior, we see dehumanization, and this is where members of the out-group are seen as less than human. And history is filled with examples of out-groups being likened to dogs, rats, cockroaches, apes, snakes, or locusts, etc. This dehumanization can reduce our feelings of empathy towards members of this out-group and this makes it easier to inflict harm on them. And it also reduces the stress of inflicting harm on them. This was shown quite well in the Black Mirror episode “Men Against Fire”, which I recommend watching if you haven’t seen it. But we have this tendency to see the opponents, especially in times of war, see the enemy or even victims as interchangeable machines. They are all the same; they’re devoid of human sentiment and emotions. This tendency to engage in this dehumanization is associated with greater mutilation of enemies in wartime, and it’s also associated with the collection of war trophies; things like ears, skulls, or teeth of enemies.

Ok, so these are some of the negative effects of things like stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. In the next video we’ll look at how we can try to improve relationships between groups. I hope you found this helpful, if so, please like the video and subscribe to the channel for more. Thanks for watching!