Two Key Studies of Prejudice & Discrimination (DP IB Psychology)

Key study one: Tajfel et al. (1971)

Aim:  To investigate how social categorisation affects intergroup behaviour using the minimal groups paradigm

Participants: 

• 48 males aged 14-15 from the same state school in Bristol, UK

• The boys were randomly allocated to 3 groups consisting of 16 boys per group

Procedure:

• Once they had been randomly assigned to a group the boys were shown slides of paintings by the artists Klee and Kandinsky and told that their preference for one of these two artists would form the basis of the group they would be assigned to

• The boys were not told which of the other boys were members of their group and there was no face-to-face contact with other group members once they had made their choice

• The boys were then shown, individually, to a cubicle and asked to conduct the following task:

  • assign money (virtual, not real) to members of either the boy’s ingroup (based on the preference for the artist previously stated) or outgroup (preference for the other artist)

• The boys did not know the identity of each boy they were assigning money to, only a code number which identified whether they were ingroup or outgroup

• The trials were set up in a randomised design by the researchers and tested the boys on a range of measures including:

  • whether they would opt for maximum joint profit

  • whether they would opt for maximum ingroup profit

  • whether they would opt for maximum profit difference between ingroup and outgroup

Results:

• The boys made decisions which highlighted preference for the ingroup and some discrimination towards the outgroup

• They tended to favour the ingroup members with higher reward and to work in a way which maximised the difference between ingroup and outgroup, often at the expense of possible maximum joint profit

• This allocation of money was based solely on the mere idea of the other group rather than on any actual interaction between ingroup and outgroup members 

Conclusion:

• Ingroup favouritism can be manipulated via the minimal groups paradigm

• People use social categorisation to make decisions which expose their bias and discrimination against outgroups

 Evaluation of Tajfel et al. (1971)

Strengths

• This is a replicable experiment which uses a standardised procedure and quantitative data:

  • The above experimental features should ensure reliability as it means that the experiment can be tested again with a different sample to look for consistency

• The boys were kept apart from each other with no face-to-face interaction allowed and anonymity preserved:

  • This anonymity means that they were responding to the idea of ingroups and outgroups without having any actual contact with group members

  • This anonymity means that bias was not an issue:

    • They were not influenced by the physical appearance of any of the other boys

    • They were not influenced by the personality of any of the other boys 

Limitations

• The findings can only be generalised to boys aged 14-15 from Bristol.

• The task used is highly artificial and does not reflect how people may respond to social categorisation in everyday life, therefore it lacks ecological validity:

  • People may use prejudice and discrimination differently when presented with a real-life person or group

  • The boys may have been responding to demand characteristics and opting for choices that they felt they were expected of them

Key study two: Lam & Seaton (2016)

Aim: To investigate the influence of intergroup competition on children’s in-group and out-group attitudes

Participants:

• 112 children (65 girls; 47 boys) from a primary school in East London

• The children were aged 6 to 10 years old

• The sample reflected the ethnic mix of the school, a quarter having South Asian heritage followed by children with Black African/Caribbean heritage

Procedure:

• The children were given either a green or a yellow tie to wear as part of their school uniform over a period of two weeks

• There were two conditions of the independent variable:

  • The experimental condition:

    • the children were encouraged to see the colours they had been randomly allocated as ‘team’ colours and they were reminded frequently that there would be a competition and that the members of the winning team would win a prize

  • The control condition: the children were not encouraged to think in terms of being part of two different teams and no reference was made to the two teams competing

• The last day of the two-week period involved the children taking part in spelling and numeracy tests, competing as teams

• The children were then interviewed about their attitudes towards their own team and towards the other team

• The children also completed rating scale questionnaires designed to measure in-group and out-group attitudes

Results:

• Children in the experimental condition (competition encouraged) showed the strongest in-group bias, with positive distinctiveness for the in-group being shown more in the rating scales and interviews

• The younger children in this group gave lower ratings for the out-group than the control condition children did

• Children of all ages in the experimental group attributed fewer positive traits to members of the out-group compared to the in-group

Conclusion: In-group bias can develop when a strong sense of group identity and a competitive element are introduced through social categorisation using the minimal groups paradigm

Evaluation of Lam & Seaton (2016)

Strengths

• The study was carried out in real time, in a real setting, involving everyday tasks that the children would find familiar which gives it high ecological validity

• The use of both questionnaire and interview measures mean that both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered:

  • Triangulation of method and data was thus achieved

  • Triangulation enabled the researchers to check both measures for agreement, thus increasing the internal validity and reliability of the findings

     

Limitations

• Replicating this study would be difficult due to the unique setting of the school, the children, the staff involved and other variables which could not be standardised:

  • Not being able to replicate a piece of research lowers its reliability

• Children are often encouraged to be competitive; staff often arrange children into teams in school:

  • The above observations mean that the children may not have been responding to the minimal groups paradigm

  • Instead, the children may have simply been ‘doing what children do’ in the context of school life i.e. the experimental manipulation alone did not produce the behaviour