Authoritarianism An individual difference variable characterized by a tendency to prefer things to be simple rather than complex and to hold traditional values

Black sheep effect The strong devaluation of ingroup members who threaten the positive image and identity of the ingroup

Common ingroup identity The experience of social identity that occurs when differences in social grouping at one level are reduced by perceived similarities on a second, superordinate category

Contact hypothesis The idea that intergroup contact will reduce prejudice

Discrimination Unjustified negative behaviors toward members of outgroups based on their group membership

Extended-contact hypothesis The prediction that people who have friends from other social groups will be more accepting of all members of those groups

Feelings of social identity The positive self-esteem that we get from our group memberships

Group-serving bias (or ultimate attribution error) The tendency to make internal attributions about our ingroups’ successes, and external attributions about their setbacks, and to make the opposite pattern of attributions about our outgroups

Ingroup favoritism The tendency to respond more positively to people from our ingroups than we do to people from outgroups

Interdependence A state in which the group members depend on each other for successful performance of the group goals

Jigsaw classroom An approach to learning in which students from different racial or ethnic groups work together, in an interdependent way, to master material

Outgroup homogeneity The tendency to view members of outgroups as more similar to each other than we see members of ingroups

Prejudice An unjustifiable negative attitude toward an outgroup or toward the members of that outgroup

Social categorization The natural cognitive process of placing individuals into social groups according to their social categories

Stereotype threat Performance decrements that are caused by the knowledge of cultural stereotypes

Superordinate goals Goals that are very important and require the cooperative efforts and resources of more than one group to attain