Colloquium: A new look at stereotyping and intergroup relations, 10 February 2009

Special guest: Professor Susan T. Fiske, Department of Psychology of Princeton University, and Honorary Doctor of Leiden University since the Dies Natalis 2009.

Professor Dr.Susan T. Fiske - Princeton University

Perils of Prejudice: Universal Biases in Mind, Brain, and Culture

Abstract
Bias comes in many forms. Some groups are stereotyped as competent but not warm (for example, rich people); others are stereotyped as warm but not competent (for example, older people). Still others are stereotyped as neither competent nor nice (for example, drug addicts). The stereotypes result from social structural conditions, such as perceived cooperation-competition between groups, and their relative social status. Different group stereotypes create distinct emotions, such as envy, pity, and disgust. These emotional prejudices matter because they make people discriminate in different ways. What's more, the distinct types of prejudice appear world-wide, in dozens of cultures, in similar, apparently universal forms. And they also operate within individual encounters between people who cooperate or compete and hold different status. Recent neuro-imaging data indicate that distinct emotional prejudices may appear in distinct brain regions. Despite their apparent universality and neural correlates, emotional prejudices can be controlled by the social goals people have when they encounter each other.

Dr. Colette van Laar - Leiden University

How Valuing Ingroup Domains Maintains Motivation and Performance in Stigmatized Groups

Abstract
Recent discussions in the Netherlands, Europe, and the Western world more generally, have focused on the dangers of Islamic identities for various societal goals. Such views are based in part on the assumption that having a strong ethnic identity is at odds with full participation in a modern society and more particularly in the idea that the content of this particular identity is inconsistent with the behaviors needed to be successful in western societies. While social psychology does not have a view on the meaning and importance of any particular identity, social psychological theory - and social identity and stigma theories in particular - has much to say about the meaning of identity to individuals; the importance of allowing individuals to express their identities; and the likely consequences if individuals are prevented from expressing identities that are important to them. In our research, we have focused on one particular part of this process, examining how giving value to identities of importance to members of low status groups not only improves well-being, but actually improves exactly those outcomes that matter to society: motivation and performance on important domains that allow one to improve one’s status, such as education and work, and identification with both the higher status outgroup and the larger society in which one lives. In this presentation we will outline these findings and discuss their consequences with particular reference to recent studies that we conducted among young Islamic women.

Dr. Tomas Ståhl - Leiden University

Protecting cognitive control and performance under threat: The role of regulatory focus.

Abstract
It is well-established that the activation of task relevant negative stereotypes can impair performance in various domains. A common view is that such stereotype threat effects occur because intrusive negative thoughts and feelings tax cognitive resources needed for successful task performance. Building on this work, I argue that one way to cope with stereotype threat is to adopt a prevention focus; a regulatory orientation adapted to deal with threatening situations and therefore enabling recruitment of additional cognitive resources in response to a threat. Research is presented demonstrating that stereotype threat leads to the expected cognitive impairments among people who are not in a prevention focus. However, people in a prevention focus show no signs of cognitive impairments in response to stereotype threat. A final study confirms that the protective properties of a prevention focus are not restricted to cognitive control per se, but generalize to performance on stereotype relevant tasks requiring the same cognitive resources.

Dr. Belle Derks - Leiden University

The Neuroscience of Social Identity Threat: Measuring the Effects of Stigma in the Brain

Abstract
In this talk, I discuss a project that examines how stigmatized group members (i.e. women) evaluate their group implicitly vs. explicitly when they are confronted with negative group stereotypes. Although it has been shown that stigma negatively affects the identity, motivation and performance of members of socially devalued groups, social psychologists have encountered difficulties in reliably measuring these effects. For example, often those people who experience the most identity threat are the least likely to admit or be aware of how stigma affects them, as their coping mechanisms (e.g. ingroup bias) lead them to explicitly report a highly positive attitude towards their group. The current project aimed to go beyond explicit measures by assessing on an implicit level how negative stereotypes affect the attitudes of members of stigmatized towards their group. By measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in reaction to pictures of ingroup and outgroup targets, we were able to show that negative stereotypes directly lower the implicit evaluation that people have of their ingroup. Moreover, implicit evaluations of the ingroup were negatively related to self-reported (explicit) ingroup favoritism. This indicated that the lower participants evaluated their group on measures of implicit evaluation, the more they reported to favor their ingroup on more controllable measures. By relating the neural measures to self-reports of ingroup bias, we not only revealed the differential results obtained with implicit and explicit measures, but also underlined the compensatory nature of ingroup bias.

Dr. Daan Scheepers - Leiden University

The Challenge of Multiculturalism

Abstract
Members of ethnic majority groups react often quite negatively to members of ethnic minority groups expressing a dual identity (e.g., “I feel Dutch, but also Moroccan”). This has been explained by that majority group members are more in favor of a “one group” identity representation that is defined by the norms and values of the majority group, and to which members of the minority group should assimilate. In the current research we show that when members of the ethnic majority are encouraged to think about themselves in dual identity terms (something they are not spontaneously inclined to do) this has a positive influence on the rating of an interaction partner from an ethnic minority group who expresses a dual identity; in fact, the ratings were as positive as when the interaction partner expressed a “one group” identity representation. Interestingly however, only in the dual identity situation the interaction elicited a cardiovascular response that is indicative of “challenge” (high cardiac performance, low vascular resistance); in the other conditions a cardiovascular response indicative of “threat” was observed (low cardiac performance, high vascular resistance). This illustrates that stressing both similarities and differences between members of different ethnic groups (as is typical for multiculturalism and a dual identity) makes inter-ethnic interactions really challenging.

e- mail: gerris@fsw.leidenuniv.nl