Unit IV: Attitude, Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination and Attribution

Unit IV: Attitude,
Stereotypes, Prejudice,
Discrimination
and Attribution Dr Juhi Garg
Definition
Attitude is psychological tendency. It is an

hypothetical construct which can only be inferred
through the behavior of an individual.
Attitude Formation
• On the basis of various scientific researches and studies, psychologists have found out
various factors responsible for attitude formation:
• 1. Need Satisfaction.
• 2. Social Learning
• 3. Classical Conditioning
• 4. Operant Conditioning-behavior modification through reward or punishment
• 5. Observational Learning
• 6. Group Affiliations
• 7. Cultural factors
• 8. Personality Factors
• 9. Stereotypes
• 10. Given information
Attitude Change
Types: Congruent and Incongruent
Factors that change attitude

• 1. Changing reference groups
• 2. changing group affiliations
• 3. Additional information
• 4. Persuasive communication
• 5. Source of communication
• 6. Characteristics' and content of communication
• 7. Channel
• 8. Creditability of communicator
• 9. Attractiveness of communicator
Stereotypes
• A stereotypes is a cluster of beliefs usually lacking a rational basis

regarding the members of some groups.
• “Stereotypes is a belief about some particular trait being
prevalent among all members of a social group. Whatever be the
characteristic it is assumed to vest all people in that category.
Therefore, all members of the group are perceived and understood
alike”-Albrecht, Thomas & Chadwick (1980)
Characteristics' of stereotypes
• 1. Mental pictures about people or community or category on the

basis of which we ascertain their traits etc.
• 2. It is a widely agreed view about people or community or
category
• 3. It involves gross or exaggerated generalisations
• 4. It is generally not amendable to change despite of information
and evidence to the contrary.
• 5. It can have both positive and negative direction.
Development and Maintenance of Stereotypes
• 1. Socialization
• 2. Imitation
• 3. Tradition and Folkways
• 4. Social and Cultural distance
Stereotypes and Social Life/functions
• Stereotypes play a important role, it works as a heuristic.

• 1. Help understand social behavior.
• 2. Helps control social behavior
• 3. Helps in prediction
Difference between Stereotypes and
Prejudice
• In stereotype, all members of a community are treated alike as they are

believed to have same characteristics while prejudice can take any direction
it can be positive or negative both.
• Prejudice is a type of an attitude and has all three components i.e. affective,
cognitive and behavioral (ABC).
• However, stereotypes is cognition and expectations from person simply
because he is a member of a particular group or community.
• Stereotypes are more stable than prejudice.

Prejudice
• “Prejudice is an attitude that predisposes a person to think, perceive, feel

and act in favorable and unfavorable ways towards a group or its individual
members”- Secord and Backman
• “Prejudice is generally a negative attitude towards members of some social,
ethnic or religious” - Baron & Byrne
Characteristics' of Prejudice
• 1. It is acquired
• 2. It has emotional overtones
• 3. Prejudice is irrational
• 4. It is functional – prejudice helps individual to to justify their hostilities,
repressed desires and strengthen feelings of self-esteem and prestige.
• 5. It has no connection to reality.
Types of Prejudice
• 1. Racial
• 2. Sex/gender
• 3. Caste
• 4. Language
• 5. Religious
Others are:
• Political, communal etc.
Discrimination
• Discrimination is the differential treatment of individuals belonging to

a particular social group or community or religion.
• It is generally overt or behavioral expression of prejudice.
• Generally the person or the discriminated group is denied some

privilege or right that is accorded to other members of society who do
not belong to the minority group.
Development and Maintenance of Prejudice
and Discrimination
1. Status and power structure

2. Historical facts
3. Situational factors
4. Job competition
5. Conformity to norms
6. Interaction patterns
7. Psychodynamic factors
8. Frustration and aggression
9. Authoritarian Personality
10.Personality needs
Manifestation of Prejudice
• 1. Withdrawal: Moving away from the object of discrimination

• 2. Avoidance: Keeping away from situation where the object of
discrimination is present.
• 3. Discrimination: biased behavior.
• 4. Lynching/ hurting the object of discrimination
• 5. Extermination: removing the existence of object of discrimination
Methods of reducing prejudice and
discrimination
• 1. Intergroup contact
• 2. Education
• 3. Anti-prejudice Propaganda
• 4. Incongruent role
• 5. Social Legislation: Eg reservation, Govt promote inter-caste marriage
• 6. Personality change techniques
• 7. Most importantly acceptance and respect for all.
Attribution
• Human beings are innately curious and we always wish to know

why people behave the way way they do.
• Causes of Behavior:
• 1. Internal Vs External attributions
• 2. Covariation Principle
• The actor
• The entity
• The circumstances
Prerequisite information to check the
explanation
• 1. Consensus
• 2. Consistency
• 3. Distinctiveness
Information Pattern for the three attributions
Attribution/ Consensus Distinctiveness Consistency

Information Pattern
Actors High High High
Entity Low Low High
Circumstances Low High Low

Errors in Attribution
• 1. The fundamental attribution error:

• When we rate behavior of others as due to dispositional/internal
cause and cause of our own behavior as due to situational
/external.
• 2. Halo Effects: Assuming consistency within a person
• The halo effect is the phenomenon in which the initial familiarity
that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly
positive characteristics.
Theory of Attribution-Weiner (1980, 1992)
• According to the theory, the explanations that people tend to make to

explain success or failure can be analysed in terms of three sets of
characteristics:
• 1. Internal or external
• 2. Stable or unstable
• 3. Controllable or uncontrollable
• People interpret the environment in such a way as to maintain a positive

image, i.e they will attribute their success and failure to factors that will
enable them to feel as good as possible about themselves.
Four factors
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Unit IV: Attitude,

Attitude is psychological tendency. It is an

Types: Congruent and Incongruent

Factors that change attitude

• A stereotypes is a cluster of beliefs usually lacking a rational basis

• 1. Mental pictures about people or community or category on the

• Stereotypes play a important role, it works as a heuristic.

• In stereotype, all members of a community are treated alike as they are

• Stereotypes are more stable than prejudice.

• “Prejudice is an attitude that predisposes a person to think, perceive, feel

• Discrimination is the differential treatment of individuals belonging to

• It is generally overt or behavioral expression of prejudice.

• Generally the person or the discriminated group is denied some

1. Status and power structure

• 1. Withdrawal: Moving away from the object of discrimination

• Human beings are innately curious and we always wish to know

Attribution/ Consensus Distinctiveness Consistency

Actors High High High

Entity Low Low High

Circumstances Low High Low

• 1. The fundamental attribution error:

• According to the theory, the explanations that people tend to make to

• People interpret the environment in such a way as to maintain a positive

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