Evaluation of Social Groups: Reasons, Consequences and Reduction of Stereotypes and Prejudices
Social categorization processes continue to be one of the most important issues in social psychology. Social categorization means that humans perceive, judge, and treat other people as well as themselves according to their social group membership, e.g. as regards sex, ethnicity, religion, handicap, or sexual orientation. Our research examines the following questions:
- What are the reasons for prejudice and discrimination? How can prejudice and discrimination be reduced? What can be done to promote respect for and acceptance of equal rights and diversity? How effective are educational programs for adolescents, teachers, and pedagogues? To analyze these questions, we focus on attitudes and behavior towards lesbians and gays (homophobia or homonegativity, Klocke & Spielberg, 2009).
- Members of the ingroup are judged as being more extreme than members of the outgroup. This implies that negative behavior of ingroup members is judged as being even more negative than negative behavior of outgroup members (black-sheep effect, Marques, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1988). We analyze this black-sheep effect with regard to the social groups of women and men (Klocke & Dannenberg, subm.). In order to explain the effect, we consider the role of gender stereotypes, gender identification, group identity threat (i.e. perceived gender-based prejudice and discrimination), as well as of the evaluation dimension (communion or agency).
References:
Klocke, U., & Dannenberg, E. (subm., Sept. 26-30, 2010). Männer müssen hart sein: Einfluss von Black Sheep-Effekt und Geschlechtsstereotypen auf die Bewertung von Männern und Frauen [Men have to be strong: The influence of the black-sheep effect and gender stereotypes on the evaluation of men and women]. Paper presented at the 47th Congress of the German Psychological Association (DGPs), Bremen.
Klocke, U., & Spielberg, R. (2009). Evaluation des Modellprojekts „Community Gaymes“ im Programm „Soziale Stadt“ im Auftrag der Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Berlin (Abschlussbericht) [Evaluation of the model project "Community Gaymes" in the programme "Socially Integrative City" on behalf of the Senate Administration on Urban Development, Berlin (final report)]. Unpublished manuscript, Berlin.
Marques, J. M., Yzerbyt, V. Y., & Leyens, J.-P. (1988). The 'Black Sheep Effect': Extremity of judgments towards ingroup members as a function of group identification. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 1-16.