Collective & Individual cultures – collective cultures emphasise the need of groups: holding duty to the in-group. Characterised by strongly emotional attachment to in-group.
Collective culture relies on mutual independence & co-operation, prejudice between individuals less likely to be lower in collectivism, as registered with in-group being independent & less likely to be stigmatised for physical deformity a lack of skills.
Individual cultures emphasises, private self-individual autonomy & prioritise person over collective needs, more likely to be prejudice. West Europe & USA likely to be individualistic while east Europe & Africa are collective
Minard: investigated how social norms influenced prejudice, behaviour of white & black miners in southern USA. Observed both above & below ground. Below ground social norms were friendly towards work colleagues. 80 of white miners friendly towards black miners.
Above ground where social norms of prejudice from white to black, it was 20. White miners conforming to different social norms above & below ground. Suggesting prejudice can/can’t be shown depending on social context which behaviour takes place.
Taylor & Jaggi: Examined perception of Muslims & Hindus office workers had on each other & how described (acting desirably in a group). Results show my Muslims & Hindus have systematic bias to ingroup when in-group acted desirably – characteristic blessed. Undesirably – blamed out of control factors. (reversed for out-groups).
| Strength | Weaknesses |
| Minard – found 80 white miners friendly to black miners but prejudice when above ground (20). – shows that prejudice can be created by social norms of specific location.
Taylor & Jaggi – found cultures would favour our in-group for blessing character for desirable behaviour & blaming out of control factors for undesirable behaviour and reversed for out-group. – shows even in religion we would favour our in-group & show prejudice to out-group. Application – prejudice is a result of culture through socialisation and how we act with prejudice based on cultural norms – meaning we must change the norms of culture to try and reduce prejudice. |
Validity – hard to find comparisons between culture as the measures & research methods aren’t the same – means that studies might not be making meaningful & valid comparisons.
Different theory – authoritarian personality suggests prejudice affected by personality traits which are developed by strict upbringing. – role of culture cannot be accountable for prejudice on its own. Culture in an abstract sense – prejudice reactions of ppl within a culture actually create a culture – ppl are constantly contributing to their culture rather than simply responding to it. Reductionist – |