Social Psych Research Idea Paper-2

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State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota *

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2012

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Sociology

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Feb 20, 2024

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The world has seen numerous societal issues that have gone unanswered: poverty, unequal access to quality health care, education inequality and much more. While these pressing issues are important, prejudice and prejudiced attitudes have had implications throughout human history. Impacting society and individuals, prejudice is known as a generalized negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, solely due to their participation in the group (Aronson et al., 2019, p. 403). Deeply rooted in bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, prejudice influences our perception of the world and can have profound consequences by serving as a barrier to social progression, inclusivity, and a harmonious society. Prejudice fuels discriminatory behaviors, inequality amongst individuals, and even as much as violence which can affect not only interpersonal relationships but social issues as well. Recognizing, understanding, and reducing prejudice is critical as it serves as a stepping stone toward a more fair and just society. From infancy, the human brain simply cannot help but to place us in groups according to membership in a particular category. It has been found and supported in a study conducted by Kelly and colleagues that by 3-months of age, infants with primary exposure to their own race develop a preference for looking at faces of the same race versus faces of another race (Kelly et al., 2005). This study conducted by Kelly backs up the social psychological phenomenon known as the Other-Race Effect which is the tendency to lose capacity to easily distinguish members of different races and further illustrates how people are born with the innate ability to notice differing categories but it is their personal experience that influences that ability (Aronson et al., 2019, p. 403). Our experience is what shapes and influences our attitude towards outgroups. As a human being we often are victims of prejudice as the human mind automatically categorizes us as a member of an identifiable group, which can vary from skin color or religion, to ethnicity or national origin (Aronson et al., 2019, p. 403). Just as we fall victim, we also inflict our prejudiced attitudes on others we may see as different from us. We develop negative

attitudes towards people in outgroups because people who are different from us may cause a threat toward our social identity. Social identity is a framework that provides a sense of belongingness and conceptualizes that a person’s self-concept and self-esteem are closely connected to their identification with social groups such as nationality, religion, occupation, or political affiliation (Brewer & Brown, 1998; Tajifel & Turner 1986). Feeling like you belong is crucial in understanding one’s place in the world and can contribute to meaning in life and when someone feels like their group is superior they are experiencing ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief the group you identify with is superior to other groups. Singelis and his colleagues ran a cross-cultural study which included participants from multiple East Asian Countries and the United States. They ultimately found that ethnocentrism levels vary amongst cultures, with particular cultures demonstrated stronger ethnocentrism than others. (Singelis et al., 1995). In group bias and ethnocentrism contributes to prejudiced attitudes and feeling like it is ok to display such attitudes. Religion is an important aspect of society today but its relationship with prejudice is multifaceted. Many religions can promote prejudice by promoting tolerance, and teachings that refer to individuals as “immoral” or “sinful” when they are homosexual or have kids out of wedlock, influencing those to see others that do not share the same belief as less than. Individuals often have two motivations for practicing or identifying with a religion; extrinsic and intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation can correspond with the desire to seek a deeper connection with a deity or God whereas extrinsic motivation corresponds with the desire to seek religion for personal benefits (Allport and Ross, 1967). This is important because whether a person seeks religion for intrinsic or extrinsic reasonings can influence levels of prejudice. In the research study conducted by Allport and Ross it found that people seeking religion intrinsically are often likely to display prejudiced attitudes because they live through their word versus twisting their word to fit their narrative (Allport and Ross, 1967). Allport and Ross’s findings were consistent in

that individuals who seek religion for extrinsic reasons are likely to use religion for their own personal benefit which can fuel prejudiced attitudes. Many believe that once someone has an attitude toward a group they cannot change, but this is not always true. There has been evidence of reducing prejudice by repeated contact with member(s) of an outgroup which is known as the Contact Hypothesis. The Minnesota School Segregation Project was conducted by Thomas Pettigrew and was research toward the desegregation of schools in Minnesota (Pettigrew, 1998). He found that increased contact between white students and African American students in combination with positive intergroup experiences, led to decreased levels of prejudice along with an increase in support for segregation. Pettigrew’s research supports the contact hypothesis as a method for reducing prejudice when race is the individual difference but can we apply this concept to religion instead? Further studies should be performed to detect reducing levels of prejudiced attitudes, this could be done by conducting an experiment to see if we can reduce the levels of prejudiced attitudes amongst 3 different religions using the contact hypothesis would be beneficial. Since prejudice is a social issue, testing amongst those who practice Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism would be great. I could do so by having individuals from the three differing religions spend time together and then work together in an activity to promote societal interaction between the differing groups It is my hypothesis that those who practice Christianity and Islam would display the same levels of prejudice after using the contact hypothesis versus those who practice Hinduism would display lower levels of prejudice.

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