A Social Cognitive Approach to Intergroup Bias

Monday, October 31, 2016

Kerry Kawakami

Professor of Psychology
York University

Although social psychologists have been studying intergroup biases for almost a century, there is still much to understand about the causes, consequences, and processes related to categorizing people into distinct social groups. Based in part on multidisciplinary work in this area, new methodologies and ways of thinking about stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination abound. Consequently, knowledge about social categorization processes is advancing at a rapid pace. In this talk, I with describe some of the approaches taken by my laboratory to investigate intergroup biases. Specifically, I will present experiments from three distinct projects related to forecasted and actual responses to racism, strategies to reduce intergroup bias, and the role of visual attention in ingroup preference. This research utilizes a diverse set of social cognitive paradigms to explore the mechanisms driving more implicit categorization processes. Together these findings underline the importance of contextual manipulations and momentary motivations on a variety of discriminatory responses and suggest possible ways to improve intergroup relations.