Two hundred years later it still affects us

Fördomar och diskriminering existerar ännu i dagens samhälle. Rasfördomar förekommer dagligen i olika arbetsmiljöer och även under anställningsprocesser. Denna undersökning syftar till att studera och utforska om namn spelar en avgörande roll vid bedömning av en arbetsansökan. För att besvara syftet med denna undersökning utfördes en undersökning där studenter vid Mälardalens Högskola fick läsa en arbetsannons och en arbetsansökan med olika namn. Därefter fick deltagarna skatta och bedöma de arbetssökande utifrån tolv egenskaper samt finna om de sökande var lämpliga för arbetstjänsten som civilingenjör. Undersökningen påvisade att namn inte har betydelse för hur man bedömer en arbetssökande då det inte fanns en signifkant skillnad mellan namn och hur man bedömde en arbetssökande.

Crime severity has been found to be one of the best predictors of sentencing decisions (Darley, Carlsmith, & Robinson, 2000). There is however a dearth of research examining the effect of offender and victim ethnicity on perceptions of crime seriousness, and the few studies that do exist have produced equivocal findings. Some studies find an effect of victim ethnicity (e.g., Cohen-Raz, Bozna, & Glicksohn, 1997), some studies find no significant effects of offender nor victim ethnicity (e.g., Benjamin, 1989), and some studies only find effects under certain conditions, such as when the crime is of low seriousness (e.g., Herzog, 2003a). The present study was conducted in an attempt to clarify these convoluted findings by using measures of modern and old-fashioned prejudice. Whereas old-fashioned prejudice refers to the belief that an out group is in someway inferior, modern prejudice refers to the view that a minority group no longer faces discrimination or that the minority group is being too pushy when advocating for equal rights (McConahay, 1983). Using a sample of undergraduate psychology students, it was found that when the crime was perceived as being quite severe, harsher punishments were recommended for the offender. Further to this, participants scoring high in modern prejudice perceived crimes to be more severe and recommended longer sentences in certain offender-victim ethnicity conditions than participants scoring low in modern prejudice. However, contrary to the hypotheses, no significant differences were found between high and low old-fashioned prejudice participants. Perceived offender responsibility and stability were also found to affect perceptions of crime severity and recommended punishment. When an offence was described as being stable (i.e., the offender had committed similar crimes in the past), participants rated the crime as being more severe and recommended a harsher punishment than when it was the offenders first offence. Additionally, when participants attributed responsibility for the crime to the offender, crime severity ratings were higher and recommended punishments were longer. The implications of these results are discussed and recommendations for future research are put forward.

This thesis examined the prejudiced attitudes toward homosexuals among university students in Japan, and the relationships of these attitudes with the students' demographic information, contact experiences with homosexuals, attitudes toward men's and women's roles, and living experience in foreign countries. In addition, this thesis compared Japanese and American university students' prejudice toward homosexuals. Survey data were collected from 166 university students in Japan, which is then compared to data on 956 university students in the United States (Baunach and Burgess 2002). The regression results demonstrated that Japanese respondents who had contact with homosexuals and who had relatively egalitarian gender role attitudes were less prejudiced than those who had no contact and who had relatively traditional gender role attitudes. American students expressed more prejudiced attitudes toward homosexuals than Japanese students. Even after controlling for gender, parents' education, gender role attitudes, and contact experiences, American students were more prejudiced than Japanese students.

Grupptillhörighetens påverkan på uppfattningen av politiska uttalanden är något som inte tidigare studerats inom svensk forskning. I denna experimentella studie deltog 96 studenter, varav 25 män. Genom en enkätundersökning testades avsändarens betydelse på hur politiska uttalanden värderas. Syftet var att se om ett politiskt uttalande uppfattades olika beroende på avsändare och huruvida deltagarens grupptillhörighet påverkade uppfattningen om uttalandet. Fyra olika enkäter delades ut, innehållandes samma uttalande men olika påstådda avsändare. Det antogs att deltagaren skulle uppfatta uttalandet mer positivt när det kom från det parti deltagaren sympatiserade med. Det antogs även att uttalandet från Sverigedemokraterna skulle uppfattas mer negativt än de andra uttalandena bland de deltagare som inte röstade på Sverigedemokraterna. Deltagarna skattade uttalandet med hjälp av tio värdeladdade ord. Resultatet visade att individer såg mer negativt på ett uttalande som påstås komma från Sverigedemokraterna än när uttalandet sades komma från övriga påstådda avsändarna. Resultaten diskuterades utifrån förutsättningarna vid materialinsamlingen.

The aim of this essay is to investigate Face Theory, from a gender perspective, in the 19th century’s novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with the help of Speech Act Theory including direct Speech and indirect Speech. The special focuses of this investigation are if Elizabeth has a stereotypical use of FTAs strategies for different genders.

Crime severity has been found to be one of the best predictors of sentencing decisions (Darley, Carlsmith, & Robinson, 2000). There is however a dearth of research examining the effect of offender and victim ethnicity on perceptions of crime seriousness, and the few studies that do exist have produced equivocal findings. Some studies find an effect of victim ethnicity (e.g., Cohen-Raz, Bozna, & Glicksohn, 1997), some studies find no significant effects of offender nor victim ethnicity (e.g., Benjamin, 1989), and some studies only find effects under certain conditions, such as when the crime is of low seriousness (e.g., Herzog, 2003a). The present study was conducted in an attempt to clarify these convoluted findings by using measures of modern and old-fashioned prejudice. Whereas old-fashioned prejudice refers to the belief that an out group is in someway inferior, modern prejudice refers to the view that a minority group no longer faces discrimination or that the minority group is being too pushy when advocating for equal rights (McConahay, 1983). Using a sample of undergraduate psychology students, it was found that when the crime was perceived as being quite severe, harsher punishments were recommended for the offender. Further to this, participants scoring high in modern prejudice perceived crimes to be more severe and recommended longer sentences in certain offender-victim ethnicity conditions than participants scoring low in modern prejudice. However, contrary to the hypotheses, no significant differences were found between high and low old-fashioned prejudice participants. Perceived offender responsibility and stability were also found to affect perceptions of crime severity and recommended punishment. When an offence was described as being stable (i.e., the offender had committed similar crimes in the past), participants rated the crime as being more severe and recommended a harsher punishment than when it was the offenders first offence. Additionally, when participants attributed responsibility for the crime to the offender, crime severity ratings were higher and recommended punishments were longer. The implications of these results are discussed and recommendations for future research are put forward.

Over 50 years of research on prejudice has identified dozens of strategies that effectively reduce stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. However, very few studies have examined if any of these strategies reduce bias when used directly by a stigmatized target. A few studies show that when stigmatized targets attempt to reduce bias by blatantly confronting people, or by presenting counter-stereotypic attributes, outgroup perceivers are threatened and motivated to retaliate against the target (Czopp & Montieth, 2003; Rudman & Glick, 2001). The Target Empowerment Model (or TEM) provides a framework for addressing these problems. The TEM proposes that targets can blatantly challenge bias in others if they first use strategies that diffuse perceptions of threat, like asking self-affirming questions (Stone et al., 2010). Using a social networking paradigm, three experiments tested the effects of asking self-affirming questions, confronting through perspective taking, and the combination of these strategies, on the biases expressed toward an Arab American target individual. Experiment 1 showed that when an Arab American target challenged perceivers by asking them to take their perspective, highly prejudiced participants showed increased dislike and distancing relative to a neutral question control condition. Experiment 2 showed that as predicted by the TEM, distancing in high prejudiced individuals was significantly reduced if the target first asked questions designed to affirm the perceiver's sense of fairness prior to insisting on perspective taking. Experiment 3 demonstrated that when the target affirmed prejudiced perceivers on values related to creativity prior to implementing a perspective taking strategy, perceivers showed less dislike and distancing compared to using either affirmation or perspective-taking strategies alone. In addition, reductions in the negative emotions directed at the target partially mediated the relationship between the use of different TEM strategies and distancing from the target. Taken together, these studies support the TEM predictions that stigmatized targets can effectively challenge prejudiced perceivers to reduce their biases if they first use a subtle bias reduction strategy that reduces perceptions of threat.

Olika forskningsdiscipliner har i över 60 år studerat attribution. Dock finns ett kunskapsglapp då de flesta studier har gjorts på vuxna människor. Undersökningen koncentrerades därför till att studera attribution hos förskolebarn och söka reda på deras spontana reaktioner på sagofigurer och porträtt, samt deras bedömning av olika egenskaper hos dem. Deltagare var 16 förskolebarn, varav 9 flickor, vilka intervjuades i 45 minuter var. En innehållsanalys genomfördes vilken resulterade i olika teman och kategorier, därefter genomfördes en separat analys för barnens bedömning av tjocka respektive smala personer. Huvudresultatet visade att kategorier som var kopplade till utseendet var mer betydande än andra kategorier, samt att tendensen att föredra smala personer över tjocka påvisades. Resultaten diskuterades utifrån olika synvinklar på hur dessa resultat speglar samhället, och utifrån olika teorier om utveckling, samt vad detta kan tänkas ha för inverkan på både individen och samhället.

This study investigates ethical argumentation in Perelman and Gadamer to claim that the central theoretical framework in each philosophy simultaneously inflects and deflects available avenues of persuasion. I argue in each system there is a “confused notion” whose ambiguity underpins the available methods of rhetorical argument. For Perelman, the confused notion of the universal audience and its relationship to epideictic rhetoric determines the form of ethical persuasion that requires consensus in order to incite action for justice. For Gadamer, the confused notion of Vorurteil (prejudice, or fore- judgment) is used to critique tradition, Enlightenment reason, and historical hermeneutics. This mode of ethical argument suggests that open dialogue with an other is the best means for addressing prejudice in order to reach mutual understanding. I argue that by placing these two approaches to ethical argument into critical dialogue, their respective capacities, limitations, and distinctive rhetorical outcomes can be more clearly apprehended. / 10000-01-01