The Social Psychology of Discrimination: Theory, Measurement and Consequences

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Chapter 5
The Social Psychology of Discrimination:
Theory, Measurement and Consequences
Ananthi Al Ramiah, Miles Hewstone,
John F. Dovidio and Louis A. Penner
ocial psychologists engage with the prevalence and problems
of discrimination by studying the processes that underlie it.
Understanding when discrimination is likely to occur suggests
ways that we can overcome it. In this chapter, we begin by dis‐
cussing the ways in which social psychologists talk about dis‐
crimination and discuss its prevalence. Second, we outline some
theories underlying the phenomenon. Third, we consider the
ways in which social psychological studies have measured dis‐
crimination, discussing findings from laboratory and field stud‐
ies with explicit and implicit measures. Fourth, we consider the
systemic consequences of discrimination and their implications
for intergroup relations, social mobility and personal wellbeing.
Finally, we provide a summary and some conclusions.
Defining Discrimination
Social psychologists are careful to disentangle discrimination
from its close cousins of prejudice and stereotypes. Prejudice re‐
fers to an unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group and its
individual members. Stereotypes are beliefs about the personal
S

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85
attributes of a group of people, and can be over‐generalised, inac‐
curate, and resistant to change in the presence of new informa‐
tion. Discrimination refers to unjustifiable negative behaviour to‐
wards a group or its members, where behaviour is adjudged to
include both actions towards, and judgements/decisions about,
group members. Correll et al. (2010, p. 46) provide a very useful
definition of discrimination as ‘behaviour directed towards cate‐
gory members that is consequential for their outcomes and that is
directed towards them not because of any particular deserving‐
ness or reciprocity, but simply because they happen to be mem‐
bers of that category’. The notion of ‘deservingness’ is central to
the expression and experience of discrimination. It is not an ob‐
jectively defined criterion but one that has its roots in historical
and present‐day inequalities and societal norms. Perpetrators
may see their behaviours as justified by the deservingness of the
targets, while the targets themselves may disagree. Thus the be‐
haviours, which some judge to be discriminatory, will not be seen
as such by others.
The expression of discrimination can broadly be classified
into two types: overt or direct, and subtle, unconscious or auto‐
matic. Manifestations include verbal and non‐verbal hostility
(Darley and Fazio, 1980; Word et al., 1974), avoidance of contact
(Cuddy et al., 2007; Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006), aggressive ap‐
proach behaviours (Cuddy, et al., 2007) and the denial of oppor‐
tunities and access or equal treatment (Bobo, 2001; Sidanius and
Pratto, 1999).
Across a range of domains, cultures and historical periods,
there are and have been systemic disparities between members
of dominant and non‐dominant groups (Sidaniuis and Pratto,
1999). For example, ethnic minorities consistently experience
worse health outcomes (Barnett and Halverson, 2001;
Underwood et al., 2004), worse school performance (Cohen et
al., 2006), and harsher treatment in the justice system
(Steffensmeier and Demuth, 2000). In both business and aca‐

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demic domains, women are paid less and hold positions of lower
status than men, controlling for occupation and qualifications
(Goldman et al., 2006). In terms of the labour market, sociologi‐
cal research shows that ethnic minority applicants tend to suffer
from a phenomenon known as the ethnic penalty. Ethnic penal‐
ties are defined as the net disadvantages experienced by ethnic
minorities after controlling for their educational qualifications,
age and experience in the labour market (Heath and McMahon,
1997). While the ethnic penalty cannot be equated with dis‐
crimination, discrimination is likely to be a major factor respon‐
sible for its existence. This discrimination ranges from unequal
treatment that minority group members receive during the ap‐
plication process, and over the course of their education and so‐
cialisation, which can have grave consequences for the existence
of ‘bridging’ social networks, ‘spatial mismatch’ between labour
availability and opportunity, and differences in aspirations and
preferences (Heath and McMahon, 1997).
Theories of Discrimination
Several theories have shaped our understanding of intergroup
relations, prejudice and discrimination, and we focus on four
here: the social identity perspective, the ‘behaviours from inter‐
group affect and stereotypes’ map, aversive racism theory and
system justification theory.
As individuals living in a social context, we traverse the
continuum between our personal and collective selves. Differ‐
ent social contexts lead to the salience of particular group
memberships (Turner et al., 1987). The first theoretical frame‐
work that we outline, the social identity perspective (Tajfel and
Turner, 1979) holds that group members are motivated to pro‐
tect their self‐esteem and achieve a positive and distinct social
identity. This drive for a positive social identity can result in
discrimination, which is expressed as either direct harm to the

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outgroup, or more commonly and spontaneously, as giving
preferential treatment to the ingroup, a phenomenon known as
ingroup bias.
Going further, and illustrating the general tendency that
humans have to discriminate, the minimal group paradigm stud‐
ies (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) reveal how mere categorisation as a
group member can lead to ingroup bias, the favouring of in‐
group members over outgroup members in evaluations and allo‐
cation of resources (Turner, 1978). In the minimal group para‐
digm studies, participants are classified as belonging to arbitrary
groups (e.g. people who tend to overestimate or underestimate
the number of dots presented to them) and evaluate members of
the ingroup and outgroup, and take part in a reward allocation
task (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) between the two groups. Results
across hundreds of studies show that participants rate ingroup
members more positively, exhibit preference for ingroup mem‐
bers in allocation of resources, and want to maintain maximal
difference in allocation between ingroup and outgroup mem‐
bers, thereby giving outgroup members less than an equality
norm would require. Given the fact that group membership in
this paradigm does not involve a deeply‐held attachment and
operates within the wider context of equality norms, this ten‐
dency to discriminate is an important finding, and indicative of
the spontaneous nature of prejudice and discrimination in inter‐
group contexts (Al Ramiah et al., in press). Whereas social cate‐
gorisation is sufficient to create discriminatory treatment, often
motivated by ingroup favouritism, direct competition between
groups exacerbates this bias, typically generating responses di‐
rectly to disadvantage the outgroup, as well (Sherif et al., 1961).
Whereas social identity theory examines basic, general proc‐
esses leading to intergroup discrimination, the BIAS map (Be‐
haviours from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes; see Cuddy, et
al., 2007) offers insights into the specific ways that we discrimi‐
nate against members of particular types of groups. The BIAS

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map (Figure 1) is an extension of the Stereotype Content Model
(Fiske et al., 2002), and proposes that the relative status and
competitiveness of groups determine the stereotype content of
warmth and competence attributed to the outgroup.
Figure 1: The BIAS Map: Behaviours from Intergroup Affect and
Stereotypes (Cuddy et al., 2007)
These stereotypes predict affect towards the outgroup, and af‐
fect predicts action tendencies. Group stereotypes contain a
mixture of competence and warmth attributes, and this combi‐
nation of content gives rise to particular emotions and action
tendencies. The warmth dimension of stereotypes, which carries
greater weight in social encounters (Cuddy et al., 2007; Van
Lange and Kuhlman, 1994; Vonk, 1999; Wojciszke et al., 1998),
predicts active behavioural tendencies while the secondary di‐
mension of competence predicts more passive tendencies. Nega‐
tive active and passive behaviours can be construed by targets as
constituting discrimination, and can have significant impact on

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the quality of their lives. Examples of negative passive behav‐
iours are ignoring another’s presence, not making eye contact
with them, excluding members of certain groups from getting
opportunities, and so on, while examples of negative active be‐
haviours include supporting institutional racism or voting for
anti‐immigration political parties. These examples show that
discriminatory behaviours can range from the subtle to the
overt, and the particular views that we have about each out‐
group determines the manifestation of discrimination.
The third theory that we consider, aversive racism (Dovidio
and Gaertner, 2004) complements social identity theory (which
suggests the pervasiveness of intergroup discrimination) and the
BIAS map (which helps identify the form in which discrimina‐
tion will be manifested) by further identifying when discrimina‐
tion will be manifested or inhibited. The aversive racism frame‐
work essentially evolved to understand the psychological con‐
flict that afflicts many White Americans with regard to their ra‐
cial attitudes. Changing social norms increasingly prohibit
prejudice and discrimination towards minority and other stig‐
matised groups (Crandall et al., 2002), and work in the United
States has shown that appearing racist has become aversive to
many White Americans (Dovidio and Gaertner, 2004; Gaertner
and Dovidio, 1986; Katz and Hass, 1988; McConahay, 1986) in
terms not only of their public image but also of their private self
concept. However, a multitude of individual and societal factors
continue to reinforce stereotypes and negative evaluative biases
(which are rooted, in part, in biases identified by social identity
theory), which result in continued expression and experience of
discrimination. Equality norms give rise to considerable psycho‐
logical conflict in which people regard prejudice as unjust and
offensive, but remain unable to fully suppress their own biases.
Thus ethnic and racial attitudes have become more complex
than they were in the past.