News Release
August 28, 2002
For Immediate Release
Contact: Brian Weaver
(202) 783.2077 ext. 3022
bweaver@psychologicalscience.org
Bias and Intergroup Conflict
Even Moderates and the Best-intentioned Among Us Are Susceptible to Stereotypes
Even the best intentioned, moderate, middle-of-the-road thinkers among us are automatically primed by certain stereotypic labels. Those automatic social responses do matter in everyday interactions. Awkwardness combined with stereotype assumptions and judgments inadvertently create a hostile environment.
"Bias is more automatic than people think, but less automatic than psychologists thought," wrote Princeton University social psychologist Susan T. Fiske in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society.
We live within our in-groups: people with whom we have things in common - such as age, gender, race. Our in-group associations and assumptions allow outside influences to paint our perceptions of out-groups.
Subtle prejudice comes from people's internal conflict between ideals and biases. Direct, personal experience with out-group members may be limited, especially with residential and occupational segregation. And, in the absence of direct contact, the media and other sources color our perceptions of out-groups.
According to Fiske, there is hope. Less prejudiced perceivers can compensate for their automatic associations with conscious effort. By "thinking about one's thinking" we can override our category use, Fiske said.
"Contemporary Western ideals encourage tolerance of most out-groups," Fiske said. "Complying with modern antiprejudice ideals requires conscious endorsement of egalitarian norms against prejudice. The resulting prejudices are subtle, modern, and aversive to the people holding them."
Current Directions in Psychological Science is a journal of the American Psychological Society and features articles by leading psychology researchers on important issues of broad public interest. The American Psychological Society is dedicated to the advancement of scientific psychology research and the "giving away" of psychology in the public interest. For more information on the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science or the science of psychology, visit www.psychologicalscience.org.