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Classical Conditioning & Prejudice

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Prejudice

Literally- any prejudgment, but usually used refers to prejudging using the emotion hate.

Cause 1: Limited Experiences –a single, a few, or even just observing a negative experience with a group can lead to negative associations against all members

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Prejudice

Literally- any prejudgment, but usually used refers to prejudging using the emotion hate.

Cause 2 : Evaluative conditioning

Pairing an object with valenced stimuli can affect attitudes toward that object.

Higher-order conditioning!

WORDS MATTER!!

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Prejudice

Evaluative conditioning: Even incidental pairing can play a role!

How various groups are portrayed in popular media, on the news, etc could be very important, especially if that is someone’s primary experience with that group. Explain this in terms of what we learned about contingency effects.

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Prejudice

Getting rid of prejudice?

  • Exposure to information seems ineffective.
  • Book suggests active counterconditioning is necessary, but doesn’t include much evidence.
  • Extinction & Counterconditioning
    • Both require contact with the CS (group person is prejudiced against)

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Also depends on how much prejudice conditioning there has been!

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Notes:

Slide 2:

  • Another Conditioned emotional response..
  • Book listing out causes- obviously these aren’t the only causes and- the current dialog focusing on the wide systemic issue contributing to racism should not be overlooked- although some of these point to or stem from some of these systemic issues.
  • Can be incidental also. Some seem sensitive to this type of conditioning while others do not- Latent inhibition, ind difference (stress, etc).

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Slide 3:

  • Positive examples- gift, happy, sacred
  • Negative- bitter, ugly, failure
  • Dutch- Swedish
  • News does this “Muslim extremists high jacked 2 planes killing……” Pairs “Muslim” with emotionally charges words.

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Slide 5:

  • Facts alone unlikely to be effective
  • White americans- counter conditioning worked for Vietnamese, but not African Americans- Vietnamese were new to the area, less exposure to racist conditioning.
  • Study authors thought more, longer training would have eventually worked---so why in the hell wouldn’t they have gone ahead and done that?!
  • Feelings toward certain groups largely a matter of the kinds of Classical cond we receive as children.
  • What about aiming for latent inhibition. Ample exposure to diverse populations at a young age (choosing diverse preschools and elementary shh may help to serve as a bit of protective latent inhibition against the types of repetitive incidental pairings that occur due to systemic issues of racism.

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