Kanika homer meeting presentation

Stereotypes in Healthcare Professions

Kanika BatraResearch Analyst, HOMER

Stereotypes are social categorical judgment of people in terms of their group memberships

Types of Stereotypes:• Gender• Racial/ethnic• Professional• Age• Etc

Stereotypes

Categorization is fundamental to human cognition, serves a basic function of organizing and structuring our knowledge about the world

Bring order and coherence to the vast array of people, objects and events of daily life

Variety of social categories:• Persons• Social groups• Situations and interactions• Actions

Social Categorization

Natural categories under the domain of persons (Roger Brown, 1980)• Sex or gender • Kinship• Age• Occupation• Nationality• Race or ethnicity• Personality types• Social stereotypes

The most basic scheme for social categorization divides the world into two groups: Us and Them, in sociology and social psychology the ingroup and the outgroup (Summer, 1906)

Creates two mental categories: Us and Them


The theory based view

Based on a principle of similarity (E.g. members of a category have features in common)

Context Effects. some categories are defined by theories instead of by similarity.


What are heuristics?- Mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision

Stereotypes can be viewed as judgmental heuristics that are sometimes used to simplify the cognitive task

Stereotypic responses may predominate unless one has the motivation to engage in effortful, systematic thought

Stereotypes as heuristics

Motivational factors include:1. Personal involvement (Erber & Fiske, 1984)2. Incentives for accuracy (Neuberg & Fiske, 1987)

Factors limiting systematic processing of information:1. Distraction (Petty, wells, & Brock, 1976)2. Information overload (Rothbart, Fulero, Jensen, Howard, &

Birrell, 1978)3. Task Complexity (Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987)

Stereotypes as heuristics

Stereotyping a natural human process- both positive and negative outcomes

Positively, helps deal with an outgroup with minimum expenditure of energy (Haslam et al., 2002)

Health professionals able to take shortcuts and cope with the demands during interaction with client and employing organization (Kirkham et al., 2002)

Negatively, it may generate false or negative expectations of another group’s attitudes or behaviors creating reality through self-fulfilling prophecy (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996)

How do Stereotypes affect healthcare professionals?

A professional group faced with stereotypes by other groups may have an impact on self image and output

Example- negative perceptions of public stereotyping of nursing is thought to influence the development of self esteem, job satisfaction and performance (Takase et al., 2001)

Students also hold stereotypes of various healthcare professionals- through media or through prior experiences (Hallam, 2000)

Students may have a unique set of perceptions because of their interest in pursuing career in the field


Established students as healthcare professionals may have fixed stereotypical beliefs of one another

Students near the end of their programmes or students already in practice hold clear and established stereotypes (Carpenter, 1995; Barnes et al., 2000)

Students may also hold these stereotypical views as early as they enter training (Hind et al., 2003)


Social Identity Theory

Contact Hypothesis

Theoretical Perspectives

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Individuals derive their definition of self from their group memberships

Social Identity Theory

Ingroup

Outgroup

Identification of self with one’s own social group

Non- recognition of self with certain social group

Intergroup Differentiation

Mutual Intergroup Differentiation

SIT hypothesises an interpersonal-inter-group continuum

At inter-group end, behavior determined by groups they belong to

At interpersonal end, behavior determined by individual characteristics

Individual strives to maintain both personal and collective identity, but shifts between these two vary situationally

However, they make comparisons between ingroup and outgroup to evaluate themselves in group membership

Social Identity Theory (SIT)

Assumes contact between members of different groups would help to discover similarities and change stereotypical attitudes

Understanding the differences is of equal importance (Carpenter & Hewstone, 1996)

Within the health field, the contact hypothesis has been commonly used to explain and counteract prejudice shown by health professionals towards different patient groups

Contact Hypothesis

Allport suggested a number of conditions important to the reduction of negative as only contact was not enough for positive changes• Each group in contact situation should have equal status• Experience a cooperative atmosphere• Be working on common goals• Have the support of authorities (Institutional support)• Be made aware of similarities and differences• Have positive expectations• The members of the conflicting group perceive each other as typical members of

the group

Contact Hypothesis

Emphasizing more on positive stereotypes than negative stereotypes

Bring a change in media or public image of healthcare professions (especially for aspiring students)

Rebound stereotypes Contact hypothesis- more interprofessional interactions at

work

Reducing/combating stereotypes in healthcare professions

The use of the contact hypothesis has also been successfully translated into the IPE arena.

Studies at the University of Bristol reported by Carpenter and colleagues (Carpenter, 1995a, b; Carpenter & Hewstone, 1996) have applied the contact hypothesis to IPE, aiming, amongst other things, to promote positive attitudes between professional groups.

Contact hypothesis

Erber, R., & Fiske, S. T. (1984). Outcome dependency and attention to inconsistent information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(4), 709–726. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.47.4.709

Neuberg, S. L., & Fiske, S. T. (1987). Motivational influences on impression formation: Outcome dependency, accuracy-driven attention, and individuating processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 431–444. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.53.3.431

Petty, R. E., Wells, G. L., & Brock, T. C. (1976). Distraction can enhance or reduce yielding to propaganda: Thought disruption versus effort justification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(5), 874–884. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.34.5.874

Rothbart, M., Fulero, S., Jensen, C., Howard, J., & Birrell, P. (1978). From individual to group impressions: Availability heuristics in stereotype formation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14(3), 237–255. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(78)90013-6

Bodenhausen, G. V., & Lichtenstein, M. (1987). Social stereotypes and information-processing strategies: The impact of task complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(5), 871–880. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.5.871

References