Felicia Pratto

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Felicia Pratto
OccupationProfessor of Psychology
Academic background
Alma mater Carnegie Mellon University, New York University
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Connecticut

Felicia Pratto (born 1961) is a social psychologist known for her work on intergroup relations, dynamics of power, and social cognition. [1] She is Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Pratto is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Contents

Pratto is co-author, with Jim Sidanius, of Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. [2] [3] This book describes how societies are structured through group-based social hierarchies, and how societal structures lead to intergroup conflict, racism, classism, and patriarchy.

Biography

Pratto grew up in Boulder, CO. She received her BA at Carnegie Mellon University in 1983, where she conducted research with Susan Fiske on people's conceptions about nuclear war. [4] She continued her education at New York University where she received her Master of Arts degree in 1987 and her Ph.D in Psychology in 1988. Pratto was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University from 1990-1997 prior to joining the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Connecticut.

Research

Pratto has studied the processes and consequences of inequality, encompassing race and sex discrimination in hiring and workplace environments, prejudice against the LGBTQ community and immigrants, violations of International Humanitarian Law in war-time, terrorism and counter-terrorism, and the Arab uprisings.

Pratto and her colleagues received the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award in 2008 for their co-authored paper "Power Dynamics in an Experimental Game" published in Social Justice Research. [5] [6] Their study examined relational and structural aspects of power dynamics and the emergence of inequalities as pairs of students played an interactive game.

Pratto was part of the research team awarded the Gordon Allport prize in 2011 for their co-authored paper "Diversity policy, social dominance, and intergroup relations: Predicting prejudice in changing social and political contexts" published in Social Justice Research. [7] [8] This multinational study examined anti-Muslim prejudice across countries varying in social norms related to multiculturalism and assimilation.

In another multinational study, Pratto and her colleagues were awarded the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and Intergroup Relations Award in 2015 for their coauthored paper “International support for the Arab uprisings: Understanding sympathetic collective action using theories of social dominance and social identity." [9] [10] This study used social identity theory and social dominance theory to account for sympathetic collective actions observed throughout the world in response to the Arab Spring.

Pratto uses a variety of research methods, from international surveys and comparative studies to interactive games in the laboratory and field experiments. In collaboration with Oliver John, Pratto examined cognitive processes that direct attention towards negative stimuli that have the potential to adversely impact one's well-being. [11] Her research with Peter Hegarty focused on social constructionism and group differences, with relevance to feminist psychology and lesbian and gay psychology. [12]

Representative publications

Related Research Articles

Prejudice Affective feeling towards a person or thing based on perceived group membership

Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived political affiliation, sex, gender, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, complexion, beauty, height, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other personal characteristics.

Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group, or between social groups. The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies.

The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group members around those central tendencies or typical attributes of those group members. Thus, outgroup stereotypicality judgments are overestimated, supporting the view that out-group stereotypes are overgeneralizations. The term "outgroup homogeneity effect", "outgroup homogeneity bias" or "relative outgroup homogeneity" have been explicitly contrasted with "outgroup homogeneity" in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup.

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a personality trait measuring an individual's support for social hierarchy and the extent to which they desire their in-group be superior to out-groups. SDO is conceptualized under social dominance theory as a measure of individual differences in levels of group-based discrimination; that is, it is a measure of an individual's preference for hierarchy within any social system and the domination over lower-status groups. It is a predisposition toward anti-egalitarianism within and between groups.

In-group and out-group Sociological notions

In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example identify with their peer group, family, community, sports team, political party, gender, religion, or nation. It has been found that the psychological membership of social groups and categories is associated with a wide variety of phenomena.

In psychology and other social sciences, the contact hypothesis suggests that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can effectively reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. Following WWII and the desegregation of the military and other public institutions, policymakers and social scientists had turned an eye towards the policy implications of interracial contact. Of them, social psychologist Gordon Allport united early research in this vein under intergroup contact theory.

The minimal group paradigm is a methodology employed in social psychology. Although it may be used for a variety of purposes, it is best known as a method for investigating the minimal conditions required for discrimination to occur between groups. Experiments using this approach have revealed that even arbitrary distinctions between groups, such as preferences for certain paintings, or the color of their shirts, can trigger a tendency to favor one's own group at the expense of others, even when it means sacrificing in-group gain.

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a social psychological theory of intergroup relations that examines the caste-like features of group-based social hierarchies, seeking to explain how they remain stable and perpetuate themselves. According to the theory, group-based inequalities are maintained through three primary mechanisms: institutional discrimination, aggregated individual discrimination, and behavioral asymmetry. The theory proposes that widely shared cultural ideologies provide the moral and intellectual justification for these intergroup behaviors, serving to disguise privilege as “normal”. For data collection and validation of predictions, the social dominance orientation (SDO) scale was composed to measure acceptance of and desire for group-based social hierarchy using two factors: 1) support for group-based dominance and 2) generalized opposition to equality, regardless of the in-group’s position in the power structure. Though the scale is used in other social and political psychology studies with disparate goals including those exploring the causes of the orientation, social dominance theory’s perspective is that explaining the orientation cannot explain group-based dominance due to its role as just one of many factors that act as both partial effects as well as a partial cause of group-based dominance.

Susan Tufts Fiske is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University. She is a social psychologist known for her work on social cognition, stereotypes, and prejudice. Fiske leads the Intergroup Relations, Social Cognition, and Social Neuroscience Lab at Princeton University. Her theoretical contributions include the development of the stereotype content model, ambivalent sexism theory, power as control theory, and the continuum model of impression formation.

Social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.

Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem. This motive becomes especially prominent in situations of threat, failure or blows to one's self-esteem. Self-enhancement involves a preference for positive over negative self-views. It is one of the four self-evaluation motives along with self-assessment, self-verification and self-improvement . Self-evaluation motives drive the process of self-regulation, that is, how people control and direct their own actions.

Realistic conflict theory, also known as realistic group conflict theory, is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict. The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition over limited resources, and it also offers an explanation for the feelings of prejudice and discrimination toward the outgroup that accompany the intergroup hostility. Groups may be in competition for a real or perceived scarcity of resources such as money, political power, military protection, or social status.

In social psychology, the stereotype content model (SCM) is a model, first proposed in 2002, postulating that all group stereotypes and interpersonal impressions form along two dimensions: (1) warmth and (2) competence.

The imagined contact hypothesis is an extension of the contact hypothesis, a theoretical proposition centred on the psychology of prejudice and prejudice reduction. It was originally developed by Richard J. Crisp and Rhiannon N. Turner and proposes that the mental simulation, or imagining, of a positive social interaction with an outgroup member can lead to increased positive attitudes, greater desire for social contact, and improved group dynamics. Empirical evidence supporting the imagined contact hypothesis demonstrates its effectiveness at improving explicit and implicit attitudes towards and intergroup relations with a wide variety of stigmatized groups including religious minorities, the mentally ill, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, and obese individuals. Researchers have identified a number of factors that influence the effectiveness of the imagined contact hypothesis including vividness of the imagery and how typical the imagined outgroup individual is. While some researchers question the effectiveness of the imagined contact hypothesis, empirical evidence does suggest it is effective at improving attitudes towards outgroups.

Patricia Grace Devine is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was the psychology department chair from 2009 to 2014. She was also the 2012 president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Jim Sidanius, also known as James Sidanius was an American psychologist and academic. He served as John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in memory of William James and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He won the 2006 Harold Lasswell Award for “Distinguished Scientific Contribution in the Field of Political Psychology” from the International Society of Political Psychology and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2013 Career Contribution Award. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007. The Society of Experimental Social Psychology awarded Sidanius the Scientific Impact Award in 2019.

Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.

In social psychology, a metastereotype is a stereotype that members of one group have about the way in which they are stereotypically viewed by members of another group. In other words, it is a stereotype about a stereotype. They have been shown to have adverse effects on individuals that hold them, including on their levels of anxiety in interracial conversations. Meta-stereotypes held by African Americans regarding the stereotypes White Americans have about them have been found to be largely both negative and accurate. People portray meta-stereotypes of their ingroup more positively when talking to a member of an outgroup than to a fellow member of their ingroup.

Toni Falbo is a social psychologist known for her research on power dynamics in relationships, sibling status, and development of only children. She is a Professor of Educational Psychology and Faculty Research Affiliate of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Diversity ideology refers to individual beliefs regarding the nature of intergroup relations and how to improve them in culturally diverse societies. A large amount of scientific literature in social psychology studies diversity ideologies as prejudice reduction strategies, most commonly in the context of racial groups and interracial interactions. In research studies on the effects of diversity ideology, social psychologists have either examined endorsement of a diversity ideology as individual difference or used situational priming designs to activate the mindset of a particular diversity ideology. It is consistently shown that diversity ideologies influence how individuals perceive, judge and treat cultural outgroup members. Different diversity ideologies are associated with distinct effects on intergroup relations, such as stereotyping and prejudice, intergroup equality, and intergroup interactions from the perspectives of both majority and minority group members. Beyond intergroup consequences, diversity ideology also has implications on individual outcomes, such as whether people are open to cultural fusion and foreign ideas, which in turn predict creativity.

References

  1. "Felicia Pratto". pratto.socialpsychology.org. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  2. Sidanius, Jim; Pratto, Felicia (1999). Social dominance : an intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0521622905. OCLC   39875228.
  3. Mabasa, Langutani F. (2003). "Book Review: Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and OppressionSocial Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and oppressionAuthors: SidaniusJ. and PrattF.Date: 2001". South African Journal of Psychology. Cambridge University Press. 33 (3): 197. doi:10.1177/008124630303300311. ISBN   0-521-62290-5. ISSN   0081-2463. S2CID   147203264.
  4. Fiske, Susan T.; Pratto, Felicia; Pavelchak, Mark A. (1983). "Citizens' Images of Nuclear War: Content and Consequences". Journal of Social Issues. 39 (1): 41–65. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1983.tb00129.x. ISSN   0022-4537.
  5. "Morton Deutsch Award". Homepage of ISJR. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  6. Pratto, Felicia; Pearson, Adam R.; Lee, I-Ching; Saguy, Tamar (2008). "Power Dynamics in an Experimental Game". Social Justice Research. 21 (3): 377–407. doi:10.1007/s11211-008-0075-y. ISSN   0885-7466. S2CID   53690139.
  7. "Paper by Professor Felicia Pratto and colleagues is the co-winner of the 2014 Gordon Allport Prize | Social Psychology". socialpsych.uconn.edu. September 2013. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  8. Guimond, Serge; Crisp, Richard J.; De Oliveira, Pierre; Kamiejski, Rodolphe; Kteily, Nour; Kuepper, Beate; Lalonde, Richard N.; Levin, Shana; Pratto, Felicia (2013). "Diversity policy, social dominance, and intergroup relations: predicting prejudice in changing social and political contexts". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 104 (6): 941–958. doi:10.1037/a0032069. ISSN   1939-1315. PMID   23527848.
  9. "SPSSI | Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award". www.spssi.org. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  10. Stewart, Andrew L.; Pratto, Felicia; Bou Zeineddine, Fouad; Sweetman, Joseph; Eicher, Véronique; Licata, Laurent; Morselli, Davide; Saab, Rim; Aiello, Antonio (2015-01-19). "International support for the Arab uprisings: Understanding sympathetic collective action using theories of social dominance and social identity" (PDF). Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. 19 (1): 6–26. doi:10.1177/1368430214558310. ISSN   1368-4302. S2CID   55459864.
  11. Pratto, Felicia; John, Oliver P. (1991). "Automatic vigilance: The attention-grabbing power of negative social information". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61 (3): 380–391. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.3.380. ISSN   1939-1315. PMID   1941510.
  12. Hegarty, Peter; Pratto, Felicia (2004). "The Differences That Norms Make: Empiricism, Social Constructionism, and the Interpretation of Group Differences". Sex Roles. 50 (7/8): 445–453. doi:10.1023/b:sers.0000023065.56633.cb. ISSN   0360-0025. S2CID   144193914.