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In this video, we'll differentiate

between stereotypes, prejudice, 
and discrimination;

and we'll discuss several important
social psychological concepts

and hypotheses related to each,

including what causes them 
to arise in the first place.

Let's go over a bit of 
terminology to kick things off.

A stereotype is a belief 
(which can be positive or negative )

about the characteristics 
of members of a group

that is applied generally 
to most members of that group.

Believing that Asians are good 
at math, for example, is positive;

it's not necessarily derogatory,

but it's nonetheless a stereotype 
that you have about Asians.

Now, stereotypes (these beliefs) can 
lead to prejudice, which in contrast,

can only ever be negative.

Prejudice involves drawing 
negative conclusions about

a person, a group of people,

or a situation prior to 
evaluating the evidence.

These baseless conclusions are typically

the result of those stereotypes 
that you hold about that group.

Also, in contrast to stereotypes,

prejudice involves emotion; 
it’s an attitude.

Being prejudiced against a person 
or a group of people involves

feeling negatively toward them.

Now, because of these negative emotions

and these negative conclusions 
that you're coming to,

prejudice often leads to discrimination,

which is negative behavior 
towards members of an out-group.

And by the way, an out-group is a group

that we don't belong to or one that we 
view as fundamentally different from us;

whereas an in-group, in contrast,

refers to a group that we DO identify 
with or see ourselves as belonging to.

So I might be using that 
terminology quite a bit–

important to know.

So just to summarize,

stereotypes are beliefs,
prejudice is an attitude,

and discrimination is a behavior.

Let's go over an example 
that puts all of this together.

Let's say, for example, that you 
believe older adults are incompetent,

and that's a stereotype that 
you have about older adults.

(And I'll note that I'm not endorsing 
this stereotype or any other stereotype

that I use as an example in this video,

but we have to have some kind 
of an example to work with here.)

So let's say you work at, 
I don't know, a tech company

and you're looking to hire an assistant.

If an elderly gentleman applies,

you might walk into that interview 
with the gentleman,

assuming he won't be a good fit 
or that he'd be difficult to train.

Now, we would call this 
premature conclusion;

this negative attitude toward 
this gentleman [is] prejudice.

Finally, you may decide not 
to hire the gentleman at all

because of your stereotype,
because of your prejudice.

In this case, the behavior 
of not hiring him

would be discrimination.

Now, stereotypes and prejudice 
can be either explicit

(meaning, we're consciously 
aware of having this bias)

or implicit (meaning, it's there, 
but we aren't aware of it).

Research shows that explicit prejudice 
is in decline, which is encouraging;

however, implicit prejudice 
really isn't much.

That is, people report being 
very anti-bias nowadays,

but their behavior still 
tells us a different story.

Let's take a look at a few 
examples to illustrate.

Starting with the realm of gender, 
we can look to some of my own data.

In one study, I searched through

the language used by students 
evaluating their teachers

in over 14 million reviews posted to 
a popular instructor evaluation website,

RateMyProfessors.com,
which you've perhaps used in the past.

I was specifically interested in
stereotypes about intelligence,

so I searched through uses of 
the words “genius” and “brilliant.”

So let's take a look at the results.
There's a lot of information here.

Let me help you interpret these graphs.

These are graphs for uses of

the words “genius” on the left 
and “brilliant” on the right.

The x-axis on both of these graphs

represents uses per millions 
of words of text,

which might sound a little 
complicated, but really isn't.

There's a ton of text here,

so to keep the numbers on the 
x-axis from being enormous

and just visually unappealing,

I used this uses per millions of words of text, 
but the interpretation is basically the same.

The further to the right
you go on the x-axis

(the higher the number), 
the more this word was used.

So that's how you can interpret that.

The y-axis here displays all of the 
different fields such as philosophy,

music, mathematics, psychology;

so you can look for your own field

or just pause the video and look through
them in general, if you're curious,

And fields that are higher up 
on the y-axis were the ones

in which the words were used the most often.

The blue dots here on the slide 
represent reviews of male professors,

whereas the orange dots represent
reviews of female professors.

Before I give you the punch line, 
what do you notice here?

Well, what I found is that every 
field for which we have data,

students describe their male 
professors as genius and brilliant

significantly more often than 
they do their female professors.

And in no field was this effect reversed,

even for fields where women 
were the statistical majority.

And this points to a stereotype 
in favor of men's intelligence

and against women's intelligence.

You might be wondering:

Does this reflect an overall
bias against women,

or is the stereotype specific 
to intellectual ability?

Well, I was curious about this as well,

but if you look at the data for 
the terms “excellent” and “amazing,”

the gender bias goes away entirely.

It appears that students believe

that their female professors 
can be excellent and amazing,

but they believe it's mainly the male 
professors who are genius and brilliant.

Again, this is evidence of implicit bias

because students are likely

not consciously aware
of this discrepancy.

They're simply going on line
to review their professors

and they're not giving their 
stereotypes any thought.

So explicitly, students would 
likely say they don't hold a bias,

yet implicitly, they respond in this way.

This is a common theme

in modern research on stereotypes, 
prejudice, and discrimination.

Now that's gender.
What about race?

One study found that doctors 
were only 60% as likely to suggest

a top-rated diagnostic test 
for Black heart patients

than for White heart patients.

There's also evidence to suggest

that White men are offered 
greater financial opportunities.

As one example, a study found 
that White men were offered

the best deals at used car dealerships.

White men paid $109 on average
less than White women,

$318 less than Black women,

and a whopping $935 less for a 
used car on average than Black men.

Now, these are just two examples out 
of thousands that I could tell you about,

but again, it's likely the case

that these doctors and car salesmen
aren't EXPLICITLY biased,

but their behavior provides 
evidence of IMPLICIT bias.

Okay, so let's finish 
with a brief discussion

of what leads to the development and 
perpetuation of some of these things

(stereotypes, prejudice,
and discrimination),

starting with stereotypes.

A factor that we've learned about 
before is confirmation bias,

the tendency to seek out evidence 
that supports our beliefs

and to deny, dismiss, or distort 
evidence that contradicts them.

Say, for example that you believe 
women to be bad drivers.

If you're out driving for an hour,

you might encounter several bad 
drivers, some male, some female.

If you don't have a stereotype 
against male drivers, though,

you might not think much of them 
when they speed or make dangerous moves.

But the second a female driver 
cuts you off, for example,

you feel vindicated as though 
you've found additional evidence

or proof for your belief.

And this reinforces your stereotype

even though, in truth, many people are 
bad drivers regardless of their gender.

Now, if we used System 2 thinking

(which we've learned 
about in a previous video)

to evaluate these kinds of assumptions 
and the data that we base them on,

we might realize that those assumptions 
are erroneous, but we usually don't.

This is because we are cognitive misers.

That is, we seek to use only 
minimal cognitive resources

when explaining the world around us.

Evaluating our stereotypes takes effort,

and because we generally 
don't go to more effort

than we deem absolutely necessary,

we don't evaluate or re-evaluate them at all.

Now, what causes prejudice?

First, we have in-group bias, 
which refers to the tendency

to favor individuals from within our 
group over those from outside our group.

Evidence from developmental 
psychology suggests that this bias

is innate, with young infants showing
strong preferences, for example,

for others who share their preferences
(such as their favorite snack)

and infants disliking others who 
do not share their preferences

(for example, if the other person shows
that they like a different snack more).

Think of the implications 
for racism, sexism, and so on.

Another factor is called 
the ultimate attribution error,

which refers to the assumption

that behaviors among 
individual members of a group

are due to their internal dispositions.

Out-group members’ flaws 
are due to internal factors

such as their personality or their race, 
whereas in-group members flaws aren't.

This might sound a lot like 
the fundamental attribution error,

which we've learned about before, 
but it is a bit different.

Think of the ultimate attribution error

as more of a narrow case of 
the fundamental attribution error

applied specifically to attributions

about an individual in relation to
the group to which they belong.

Along similar lines,

out-group homogeneity 
refers to the tendency to view

all individuals outside our group 
as highly similar to one another.

Here, think of the implications

for identifying a suspect in 
a police lineup, for example,

but also consider this bias in relation 
to the ultimate attribution error.

It's a very bad combination to assume

that out-group members flaws 
are due to inherent factors

such as their personalities or their race,

and to simultaneously assume

that out-group members are all 
highly similar to one another.

Finally, scapegoating refers to 
the act of blaming an out-group

when the in-group experiences frustration or 
is blocked from obtaining some kind of a goal.

People scapegoat because it preserves 
a positive self-concept.

If you believe the reason you can't get a job 
is because immigrants are taking them all,

well, then you don't have to 
come to terms with the reality

that you simply aren't qualified or 
competent enough for that line of work.

Now, this list of causes here 
is by no means all-inclusive

but should give you a good idea of 
the general psychological phenomena

that lead to the formation and
perpetuation of stereotypes,

prejudice, and discrimination. [END]