Formation of Prejudice
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Prejudice is a negative attitude towards a group based solely on membership in that group. There are three main types of prejudice: racial, automatic, and gender prejudice. Prejudice arises from desires to justify social status differences and childhood exposure, though it is not necessarily maintained into adulthood. Prejudice has motivational sources like frustration-aggression theory and social identity theory, and cognitive sources like categorization of people into groups and perception of differences between in-groups and out-groups. Ways to reduce prejudice include empathy training, anti-discrimination laws and regulations, changing social norms, increasing awareness of inconsistent beliefs, and more contact between groups.
Formation of Prejudice
- 2. What is prejudice? • Prejudice is a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people based solely on their membership in that group.
- 3. Types of Prejudice: 1. Racial Prejudice 2. Automatic Prejudice 3. Gender Prejudice
- 4. What are the sources of Prejudice? • Prejudice springs from several sources. It may arise from differences in social status and people’s desire to justify and maintain these differences. • Whether or not there is a biological root to prejudice is unknown; in any case, it is clear that prejudice occurs between biologically similar people who hold different beliefs.
- 5. • Prejudices are easy to learn, although childhood prejudices are not necessarily maintained. • Children whose parents hold prejudices may be exposed to competing views and not hold their parents’ prejudices. • Rohan and Zanna (1996) found the greatest similarity of beliefs for parents and their children with egalitarian values.
- 6. Social Inequalities: • Sociologists see society as a stratification system that is based on a hierarchy of power, privilege, and prestige which leads to patterns of social inequality. • Fear and self-preservation are themes here as well.
- 7. What are the motivational sources of prejudice? Frustration and aggression theory: • Prejudice frustration-aggression theory asserts that if the goals of people are blocked, they would tend to be frustrated and aggressive. • This particularly happens when people have no specific target to blame. • This causes them to release their frustration and aggression on a weaker target.
- 8. Social Identity Theory: • Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). • In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. • Therefore we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups).
- 9. What are the cognitive sources of prejudice? Categorization: Classifying People into Groups 1. Spontaneous Categorization 2. Perceived Similarities and Differences
- 10. Spontaneous Categorization: • We cannot resist categorizing people into groups. • We label people of widely varying ancestry as simply “Black” or “White,” as if such categories were black and white. • Such categorization is not prejudice, but it does provide a foundation for prejudice.
- 11. Perceived similarities and differences • We assume that other groups are more homogeneous than our own. • Mere division into groups can create an out- group homogeneity effect—a sense that they are “all alike” and different from “us” and “our” group (Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992). • We generally like people we perceive as similar to us and dislike those we perceive as different, so the result is in-group bias
- 12. • Many non-Europeans see the Swiss as a fairly homogeneous people. But to the people of Switzerland, the Swiss are diverse, encompassing French-, German-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking groups. • Sorority sisters perceive the members of any other sorority as less diverse than the members of their own (Park & Rothbart, 1982).
- 13. Distinctiveness: Perceiving People Who Stand Out • Have you noticed that people also define you by your most distinctive traits and behaviors? • Tell people about someone who is a skydiver and a tennis player, report Lori Nelson and Dale Miller (1995), and they will think of the person as a skydiver.
- 14. • People also take note of those who violate expectations (Bettencourt & others, 1997). • “Like a flower blooming in winter, intellect is more readily noticed where it is not expected,” reflected Stephen Carter (1993) on his own experience as an African American intellectual. • Such perceived distinctiveness makes it easier for highly capable job applicants from low-status groups to get noticed, although they also must work harder to prove that their abilities are genuine (Biernat & Kobrynowicz, 1997).
- 15. Ways to Reduce Prejudice • Training people to become more empathetic to members of other groups is one method that has shown considerable success. • By imaging themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people's actions.
- 16. Other techniques that are used to reduce prejudice include: • Passing laws and regulations that require fair and equal treatment for all groups of people. • Gaining public support and awareness for anti-prejudice social norms. • Making people aware of the inconsistencies in their own beliefs. • Increased contact with members of other social groups.