# Stereotypes, Prejudice, and the Mechanics of Bias

Psychology I · Social Psychology · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias

## Belief, Feeling, Action

Social bias is built from three distinct components. Keeping them separate is essential for understanding how human bias works.

| Component | Nature | Example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Stereotype** | **Cognition** (belief) | "All members of X are lazy" |
| **Prejudice** | **Affect** (feeling) | Disliking X on sight |
| **Discrimination** | **Behavior** (action) | Refusing to hire X |

**Stereotypes** are mental shortcuts where group categories overwrite individuals. **Prejudice** is a negative emotion held in advance of real experience. **Discrimination** is unjust behavior.

**Common pitfall:** Treating these three terms as synonyms. A person can hold a stereotype without acting on it, or discriminate without personal hatred.

## The Machinery of Bias

Biases persist through powerful cognitive mechanisms operating behind the scenes.

**Confirmation bias** makes us notice info fitting our stereotypes while ignoring contradictions. The **out-group homogeneity effect** makes outsiders seem completely uniform: "they are all alike."

Bias also operates below conscious awareness as **implicit bias**: automatic mental associations that shape behavior even in people who sincerely reject prejudice.

To counter these forces, the **contact hypothesis** states that sustained, cooperative, and equal-status contact between groups is proven to reduce prejudice over time.

## Practice questions

6 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Select every statement that is TRUE about how bias persists and how it can be reduced.

A. Confirmation bias makes people overlook or forget opposing evidence.
B. Cooperative, equal-status contact between groups reduces prejudice.
C. Since stereotypes are beliefs, accurate facts reliably remove them.
D. Out-group homogeneity makes other groups seem more uniform than one's own.
E. Implicit bias occurs only in people who openly hold prejudiced beliefs.

**Answer:** A. Confirmation bias makes people overlook or forget opposing evidence.; B. Cooperative, equal-status contact between groups reduces prejudice.; D. Out-group homogeneity makes other groups seem more uniform than one's own.

**Why:** Confirmation bias, out-group homogeneity and the contact hypothesis are all as described. Implicit bias is defined by operating below awareness, so it appears in people who sincerely reject prejudice; and the fact-correction option is refuted by confirmation bias itself - the corrective evidence tends to be filtered out by the very belief it was meant to dislodge.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-how-bias-persists-and-how

### 2. A man who believes a group is dishonest, feels no hostility toward them, and treats them fairly holds a stereotype without prejudice or discrimination.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** True. Stereotype is the belief, prejudice the feeling, discrimination the behaviour, and they are separable, which is why interventions targeting one often leave the others untouched. It is also why measuring only attitudes predicts behaviour so poorly.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/a-man-who-believes-a-group-is-dishonest-feels-no-hostility-toward

### 3. Simply putting hostile groups in contact often fails, and sometimes makes prejudice worse. Allport's contact hypothesis specifies conditions. Which set actually matters?

A. Physical proximity combined with enforced politeness
B. Equal status, shared goals, cooperation and authority support
C. Equal numbers from each group, preventing either from dominating
D. Extended duration, so that familiarity accumulates over time

**Answer:** B. Equal status, shared goals, cooperation and authority support

**Why:** Contact is a venue, not an intervention, unequal-status contact can confirm a stereotype rather than dissolve it. The conditions are what make the encounter informative, which is why desegregation succeeds or fails depending on details of how it is arranged rather than on whether it happened.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/simply-putting-hostile-groups-in-contact-often-fails-and-sometimes

### 4. LaPiere travelled America with a Chinese couple in 1934 and was refused service once in 251 establishments. Asked by post six months later whether they would serve Chinese guests, over 90% of the same establishments said no. What does that gap show?

A. That the proprietors lied on the questionnaire and were not really prejudiced at all.
B. That written questionnaires are invalid instruments and behavioural measures should always replace them.
C. That the stated attitude and the behaviour came apart entirely.
D. That attitudes had genuinely changed for the worse over the six months between the visit and the letter.

**Answer:** C. That the stated attitude and the behaviour came apart entirely.

**Why:** A general attitude expressed about a category in the abstract, months later and at no cost, is a very different thing from what a proprietor does with a couple standing in front of him and a queue behind. Both measurements are real and measure different things. The study has genuine flaws, nobody confirmed who answered the letter, and survived because better-controlled work found the same gap.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/lapiere-travelled-america-with-a-chinese-couple-in-1934-and-was

### 5. Match each observation to the mechanism it demonstrates.

**Answer:**

- You remember the two employees who confirmed your view and forget the eleven who did not → Confirmation bias
- 'Their lot are all much of a muchness; my lot are all different' → Out-group homogeneity effect
- You sincerely reject prejudice, yet your split-second judgements still favour one group → Implicit bias
- Two groups work as equals toward a shared goal for months, and hostility falls → The contact hypothesis

**Why:** Selective memory is confirmation bias; seeing the other side as interchangeable is out-group homogeneity; a mismatch between sincere values and automatic behaviour is implicit bias; and sustained cooperative equal-status contact is the condition the contact hypothesis specifies. Note the qualifiers on the last one - mere proximity between unequal or competing groups is not what reduces prejudice.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/match-each-observation-to-the-mechanism-it-demonstrates

### 6. Categorisation is a normal, useful cognitive shortcut, yet it is the first step toward acted-upon bias. Where does the ordinary process turn harmful?

A. When the category acquires an evaluative charge and licenses action
B. When the person is consciously aware of holding the stereotype
C. At the moment of categorisation, which is inherently prejudicial
D. Only when the category is based on a visible physical characteristic

**Answer:** A. When the category acquires an evaluative charge and licenses action

**Why:** Stereotype, prejudice and discrimination are cognition, affect and behaviour. Knowing they are separable is what makes intervention possible, you cannot stop categorising, and you can interrupt the later steps.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stereotypes-prejudice-and-the-mechanics-of-bias/categorisation-is-a-normal-useful-cognitive-shortcut-yet-it-is-the