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MODELLING STIGMA and PREJUDICE EXPRESSION This Version of the Manuscript Was Accepted by the European Journal of S Running head: MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION This version of the manuscript was accepted by the European Journal of Social Psychology on 1 October, 2018 This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: Kende, A., & McGarty, C. A Model for Predicting Prejudice and Stigma Expression by Understanding Target Perceptions: The Effects of Visibility, Politicization, Responsibility, and Entitativity. European Journal of Social Psychology. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2550 A Model for Predicting Prejudice and Stigma Expression by Understanding Target Perceptions: The Effects of Visibility, Politicization, Responsibility, and Entitativity Anna Kende1 Craig McGarty2 1 Department of Social Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary 2 School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Australia Authors’ note Corresponding author: Anna Kende, Department of Social Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella utca 46, 1064 Budapest, Hungary, email: [email protected] The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION 2 Abstract The study of hostile orientations toward out-groups is divided between three main domains: a) overt (explicit, old-fashioned, or hostile) prejudice, b) veiled (implicit, modern, aversive, or subtle) prejudice, and c) stigma. To date, there is no systematic account as to which form of hostility is likely to be expressed toward members of particular target groups. We propose a model that integrates the two forms of prejudice and the concept of stigma into a single framework. The contingency model of stigma and prejudice expression (SPEM) postulates that overt or veiled prejudice is a function of an interaction of prevailing perceptions of target groups within their cultural context. There are four major target perceptions that influence prejudice expression through increasing threat perception: visibility, target politicization, responsibility, and entitativity. These target perceptions describe the process and the qualitative conditions that determine the expression of prejudice toward members of different groups and social categories. Key words: prejudice; prejudice expression; stigma; target perception MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION 3 A Model for Predicting Prejudice and Stigma Expression by Understanding Target Perceptions: The Effects of Visibility, Politicization, Responsibility, and Entitativity “No theory seems by itself to provide a full answer to our fundamental question of why some groups are stigmatized and not others.” (Stangor & Crandall, 2000, p. 66) “These explanations do not specify why particular groups are targeted for stigma or prejudice” (Phelan, Link, & Dovidio, 2008, p. 363). In the past 30 years, the study of prejudice has been dominated by theories emphasizing that prejudice is not a unitary phenomenon but is (at least) two different things. These models distinguish between what has been termed traditional, old-fashioned, blatant, and explicit prejudice on the one hand, and modern, subtle, implicit, symbolic, and aversive prejudice on the other (Banaji & Greenwald, 1994; Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986; Glick & Fiske, 1997; Kinder & Sears, 1981; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). To date, there is no systematic account as to which form of hostility is likely to be expressed toward members of particular target groups. Therefore, we propose to establish the conditions of why and when these two forms of prejudice expression are likely to occur. The novelty of our model is that it applies a systematic analysis that allows us to predict when members of various social categories will encounter specific expressions of prejudice. The two forms of prejudice both represent negative responses to outgroup members, but they differ starkly in their expression (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). We use the term “overt prejudice” throughout this paper to refer to the open and unbridled expression of prejudice, and “veiled prejudice” to refer to the muted negative bias in attitudes and behavior, the expression of which is inhibited as a result of the motivation to respond to minority groups without prejudice (Devine, Plant, Amodio, Harmon-Jones, & Vance, 2002). There are clear MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION 4 differences between these concepts and we do not seek to provide a unitary explanation of either of them when using the terms overt and veiled prejudice. Sitting alongside these two forms of prejudice is the related phenomenon of stigmatization (Goffman, 1963; Jones et al., 1984; Link & Phelan, 2001; Stangor & Crandall, 2000). Goffman (1963) used the term “stigma” to refer to attributes that society uses for discrediting the people who bear them, but the term is applied sporadically. The stigma literature tends to analyze intergroup relations defined by individual characteristics, that are, in many cases, not shared by most members of the target’s family or community (see Phelan et al., 2008). These include characteristics such as illness, disability, behavioral deviance, and minority religious and socio-political views. The message from stigma research is that stigmatization depends on who the target is. In contrast, the force of prejudice research is directed at the characteristics that people share with other members of groups they belong to. Social category memberships that tend to be shared by members of the same family, such as race, social class, mainstream religion, or caste, are the core concerns in prejudice research. Prejudice research is about understanding what makes outgroup members the same as other outgroup members rather than the individual in context contrasted from other individuals (i.e., stigma research). In summary, there are two main reasons for integrating the stigma and the prejudice literature. Firstly, this combination allows us to incorporate a wider range of intergroup contexts: contexts emerging from individual and from group characteristics. Secondly, it highlights that for a comprehensive understanding of prejudice expression we need to focus on both the prejudiced individual and their targets. The differences between stigma and prejudice research should not, however, mask what is common to them. Stigma and prejudice are both relational in that they are descriptions of the relations between persons who share an attribute and those who do not. Both stigma MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION 5 and prejudice research focus on negative relations that may serve to diminish or exclude targets. These negative relations are not arbitrary or incidental but are intrinsic in the response to targets. The most overtly negative responses tend to arise, we contend, because of challenges that targets pose to particular groups, perceivers, and existing relationships. In simple terms, we are overtly prejudiced towards people we are threatened by, or more correctly, towards people we see as having characteristics that are threatening. A New Model of Prejudice and Stigma Expression Based on Target Perceptions In this paper we present a contingency model of stigma and prejudice expression that integrates the two forms of prejudice and stigmatization into a single framework. In the following section we present the basic idea, our general aims in creating a new level of integration, and some core examples from the model. No existing model specifically predicts which form of prejudice will be expressed toward members of different outgroups when negative intergroup attitudes are present. The core of our solution is that the expression of prejudice and stigma is a function of the varying ways in which those groups are perceived within their cultural context (Abelson, Dasgupta, Park, & Banaji, 1998; Brewer & Harasty, 1996; Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008; Hamilton, Sherman, & Rodgers, 2004; N. Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2002; McDonald & Crandall, 2015). We term these factors target perceptions (referring here to perceptions of members of other groups). Target perceptions shape and are themselves shaped by prevailing social norms about how members of these groups should be treated. They are shared by many members of society within a particular social and cultural context. Therefore, target perceptions influence both the process of prejudice expression and the conditions of different expressions of prejudice. Perceptions of the target group that create the impression that the target group is a threat to be confronted, or is a problem to be solved, give rise to overt prejudice, other target perceptions tend to give rise to veiled prejudice. MODELLING STIGMA AND PREJUDICE EXPRESSION 6 Despite the broad acceptance of anti-prejudice norms in some societies, the experience of being the target of prejudice differs markedly between groups within those societies. This suggests that there are social conditions that facilitate overt prejudice expression against some groups, and that (old-style) overt prejudice targeted at certain groups can return when the conditions suit it (perhaps as a backlash). Therefore, the importance of understanding the structural conditions and the process of prejudice expression is that negative intergroup attitudes are not always recognized as prejudice by the perpetrator, by
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