Prejudice

12 Key excerpts on "Prejudice"

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  Prejudice

  Its Social Psychology

  • Rupert Brown(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  and vice versa .

  This is the position I have taken in this book. By accident of training I am a social psychologist, and it is this perspective that I attempt to develop in the following chapters. But I hope that, by the time the final page is reached, it will be clear that social psychology, whilst it contains the potential to contribute significantly both to the dissection and to the dissolution of Prejudice, can never do more than explain a part – and perhaps only a small part – of the phenomenon as a whole.

  Summary

  1 Prejudice is often defined as a faulty or unjustified negative judgement held about members of a group. However, such definitions run into conceptual difficulties because of problems in ascertaining whether social judgements are at variance with reality. Instead, Prejudice is here defined simply as an attitude, emotion or behaviour towards members of a group which directly or indirectly implies some negativity towards that group.

  2 Because Prejudice involves judgements of some groups made by others, and because it can be shown to be affected by the objective relationships between these groups, Prejudice is appropriately regarded as a phenomenon originating in group processes. However, such a perspective is not incompatible with a social psychological analysis that is primarily concerned with individual perceptions, evaluations and actions. Such an analysis sees individuals acting as group members, as part of a coherent pattern of group dynamics.

  3 A social psychological analysis is but one in a number of valid scientific perspectives on Prejudice. Each discipline can usefully pursue its own research problems more or less independently of the others, although ultimately these diverse analyses will have to be compatible with each other.

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  Cultural Diversity And The Schools

  Volume 2: Prejudice, Polemic Or Progress?

  • James Lynch, Celia Modgil, Sohan Modgil(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Prejudice has been defined as ‘an antipathy based on faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he is a member of that group’ (Allport, 1954, p. 9). Similarly, Ashmore defined it as ‘a negative attitude toward a socially defined group and toward any person perceived to be a member of that group’ (Ashmore, 1970, p. 253). Thus Prejudice is an attitude which may or may not lead to discrimination, depending on many external circumstances. A fuller discussion of Prejudice, discrimination and racism is given in a recent book by Dovidio and Gaertner (1986).

  Prejudice is often linked with stereotyping, as in a definition given by Jones (1986), who uses the term ‘Prejudice’ in the sense of ‘a faulty generalization from a group characterization (stereotype) to an individual member of the group irrespective of either (a) the accuracy of the group stereotype in the first place, and (b) the applicability of the group characterization to the individual in question.’ Stereotyping may be regarded as one of the cognitive components of Prejudice; there are also affective components, such as dislike, and conative components, such as avoiding behaviour (Harding et al., 1969). The recent book on Stereotyping and Prejudice by Bar-Tal, Graumann and Kruglandski (1989) spells out in detail the assumed connections between these variables.

  Two assumptions are often made in the definition of ‘Prejudice’ and ‘stereotypes’, namely that Prejudices are always negative, i.e., disfavour a particu-lar group, and that ‘stereotypes’ are always incorrect. Both these assumptions are false. Hitler had an obvious Prejudice against the Jews, but he had an equal and contrary Prejudice in favour of the hypothetical ‘Aryan’ race which was positive and extremely favourable. Prejudice against a given group normally implies a Prejudice favourable

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  21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook

  • Stephen F. Davis, William Buskist, Stephen F. Davis, William F. Buskist(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  For example, you might recognize other theories, such as categorization or right wing authoritarianism, from other psychology courses. In all cases, our discussion centers on the unique importance of these theories to the study of stereotyping and Prejudice. Stereotypes are beliefs and opinions about the char-acteristics, attributions, and behaviors of various groups. Stereotypes can be both negative and positive. Some stereotypes are accurate and some inaccurate, but many contain a “kernel of truth”—that is, they are based, to some extent, on perceivers’ observations about their social world. Stereotypes can be descriptive, cataloging the char-acteristics associated with a social group, but they can also be prescriptive—perceivers regularly use stereotypes to define what social group members should be like. Prejudice is an attitude directed toward people simply because they are members of a specific social group. Like stereotypes, these attitudes can be either positive or nega-tive. Typically, however, researchers are most interested in negative attitudes and the influence those attitudes have on how social group members are treated. In general, Prejudice is more strongly linked to treatment of others than are stereotypic beliefs. When people are treated dif-ferently from others based primarily on membership in a social group, they have been discriminated against (Jones, 1997). Discrimination can occur at the interpersonal level, as when one individual’s actions result in unfair treatment of another because of social category membership such as race, age, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Discrimination also can be sanctioned by institutions or governing bodies, which occurs when overt practices, such as laws, give one group advantages over another. Finally, discrimination can result when one group retains the power to define cultural values or the form those values

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  Philosophy and Education

  Engaging Pathways to Meaningful Learning

  • Mara Cogni(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers

    (Publisher)

  Share with the class. 3. SUMMARIZE IN WRITING Summarize ideas from previous discussions in one or two paragraphs. Prejudice can be defined as … For example, we usually form Prejudices … The most common Prejudices are … Besides, being Prejudiced also means that … Contextualization Context One Much of human history has been a record of conflicts between differ- ent groups of people. As many psychology studies have revealed, such as the famous experiment carried out by Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority figures, the cruelest acts committed by humans were not done by criminals or madmen, but by ordinary, dutiful citizens who believed they were acting in their group’s interests. “We are wedded to opinion, to Prejudice 109 fancy, to Prejudice, which destroys the soundness of our judgments, and the serenity and buoyancy of our feelings,” 1 declares English writer and phi- losopher William Hazlitt (1778–1830) in Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners. Defining Prejudice is no easy task as it is closely related to other concepts as well. Among these concepts are ethnocentrism, which is based on the view that one’s group is the most valuable in respect to others. Another concept is intolerance, which is based on a negative view of other people and other groups. Stereotype is also frequently associated with Prejudice, as it represents a set of opinions about the individual traits of a group of people. Stereotypes, unlike Prejudices, though, are not seen as irrational and incorrect, as they seem to be the results of normal and adaptive cognitive processes. Naturally, one more concept closely connected to that of (racial) Prejudice is racism, based on beliefs in a particular race’s cultural and biological inferiority and thus unequal treatment. In the past, social scientists believed that Prejudice and discrimination were natural human attitudes—they were regarded as inborn and arguably based on humans’ natural fear of strangers and outsiders.

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  Social Psychology in Christian Perspective

  Exploring the Human Condition

  • Angela M. Sabates(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • IVP Academic

    (Publisher)

  all our neighbors? Research in this area has explored whether Prejudice and negative behavior such as discrimination are inevitable and unchangeable. The findings suggest that there is hope, but it is a tempered hope. That is, ways of reducing Prejudice and racism can be successful, but we have yet to see the extent to which this is the case. Given that universal love for all of humankind is an integral part of God’s redemptive work in this world, the extent to which we can avoid destructive attitudes and behaviors toward others becomes a central concern.

  Before we begin, it is important to define a few terms that are often used interchangeably but actually mean different things. Prejudice refers to a categorical judgment, or attitude, that can be favorable or unfavorable. It involves judgments made about members of other groups regardless of their individual characteristics. Usually, members of the out-group are judged negatively or are unfavorably stereotyped simply because they belong to the out-group. Prejudice also involves the persistence of this negative bias even when contradictory information is presented (Lyers & Yzerbyt, 1992).

  Later in this chapter, you will learn more about different types of Prejudice, including those we are aware of (explicit Prejudice ) and those Prejudiced attitudes and stereotypes that are not conscious (implicit Prejudice ). In addition, Pettigrew and Mertens (1995) distinguish between more blatant Prejudice, which can result in direct hostility toward the out-group, and a more subtle Prejudice, which generally involves refraining from outward expressions of negative emotions toward the out-group and perhaps cordially interacting with them in social settings, but generally involves evaluating one’s in-group as more positive (the so-called arms-length Prejudice ).

  Stereotypes are cognitions, or thoughts regarding people who belong to various social categories based on such factors as race, sex and age. The social cognitive approach

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  Rhetoric, Ideology and Social Psychology

  Essays in honour of Michael Billig

  • Charles Antaki, Susan Condor, Charles Antaki, Susan Condor(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Social psychologists tend to forget, perhaps too readily, that what counts as Prejudice, is more a political judgment than a psychological description (Drury, 2012). When social psychologists describe the ‘personality’ or the ‘mind-set’ of the Prejudiced person they (the social psychologists) assign themselves a role. They can no longer think of themselves as individuals standing outside society and history; they are active drivers of progressive social agendas. Researching contemporary manifestations of Prejudice has slowly taken social psychologists out of the laboratory and brought about an age of social consciousness, collective action and collective mobilization (Reicher, 2012a). The task of the social psychologist is to evaluate the relative weight of particular and general aspects of ideologies of Prejudice, the quandaries that arise from the interplay of social and individual aspects, the nature and intensities of extreme ideologies. The question is not to explain extreme Prejudice but to disentangle its pernicious presuppositions, ideological, existential and material implications. The belief that Prejudices do not reflect ‘people like us’ is engrained in the common sense of societies. Prejudice (especially extreme Prejudice), one tends to assume, is the preserve of people with less education, less time, less concern and empathy for the other. It is relatively easy to view Prejudice in a way, which assumes that the unPrejudiced are liberal and egalitarian, whereas the Prejudiced are the repositories of the very opposite values (Billig, 1988c). Prejudice affects not just separate individuals, but the collective body of groups, communities and nations. Prejudices ideas, Prejudiced stock of knowledge are not isolated, private aspects, they move between people, they are formulated and reformulated, resisted or internalized

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  Understanding Prejudice, Racism, and Social Conflict

  • Martha Augoustinos, Katherine Jane Reynolds, Martha Augoustinos, Katherine Jane Reynolds(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Prejudice captures the affective nature of the response to members of different social groups. It is the ‘I don’t like your type’ reaction and its consequences. This is clearly the phenomenon that most of us feel is so important to reduce in society. Other chapters in this book will explore more fully the subtleties of Prejudice in its different forms. However, for our purposes, we can conceive of Prejudice as a negative evaluative tendency towards a group and its members. In other words, the ‘you and your type aren’t welcome here – go drink elsewhere’ rejection by the pub bouncer. This is the phenomenon that recent social-cognitive research suggests stereotypes may play some part in. The rest of this chapter will examine some of the modern approaches to the understanding of stereotypes and the relationship between stereotypes and Prejudice. As we will illustrate, there are two roles stereotypes may play in Prejudice. One is an explicit role as a tool used by Prejudiced people to help guide their judgements and the other is an implicit role where stereotypes may influence the judgement made by any person, whether Prejudiced or not, for whom the stereotype is evoked unintentionally or without awareness. The Failure of Introspection As Freud (1901) recognized almost a century ago, many cognitive processes are not open to conscious inspection. There is no doubt that we have conscious access to the output of our many cognitive processes – this is what occupies our stream of consciousness. So if you are interested in what people think, rather than how they think, then it is legitimate to ask them. For example, Prejudice is clearly the output of some well-learnt judgemental processes. Whether you like or dislike a particular social group and its members is open to conscious inspection and it is legitimate to ask someone their feelings toward a group. Of course whether they will tell you is a different matter.

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  Error Without Trial

  Psychological Research on Antisemitism

  • Werner Bergmann(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  28 These definitions unmistakably contain judgemental aspects and express rejection, 29 i.e., the starting point for the definition of Prejudice is the assumption that Prejudice is reprehensible. Harding et al. identified ideal norms used by various authors, the violation of which characterizes preju-dicial attitudes. Such norms are rationality, justice and humanhearted-ness. 30 In terms of rationality, Prejudice is seen as cognitive deviance or as an error in the processing of information due to overgeneralization, hasty judgement, or failure to take available information into account. 31 The other two normative concepts are more closely connected with feeling and be-havior: the violation of norms consists in the unequal treatment of others (discrimination) or in the emotional and practical rejection of the humanity and individuality of others (intolerance). Thus, Prejudice cannot be defined 2 4 Melvin L. DeFleur and Frank R. Westie, Attitudes as a Scientific Concept, Social Forces 42, 1963, pp. 17-31. 2 5 Benninghaus, op. at., p. 25. 2 6 Donald T. Campbell, Social Attitudes and other Acquired Behavioral Dispositions, in S. Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science , New York 1963, pp. 94-172. 27 Ibid., p. 97; and Benninghaus, op. at., p. 30. 2 8 David Krech, Richard S. Crutchfield and Egerton L. Ballachey, Individual in Society, New York 1962, p. 214. 29 Reinhold Bergler, Psychologie stereotyper Systeme, Bern, Stuttgart 1966, p. 97. 3 0 Harding et al., op. cit., p. 5. 31 Ibid.; on the nature of the a-logical, see Bergler, op. cit., p. 98. Attitude Theory and Prejudice 275 in absolute terms but only relative to an existing system of values. 32 Preju-dice cannot be defined as false judgement, but must be seen as negative deviation from the dominant order of symbolic meanings.

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  Education in Divided Societies

  • T. Gallagher(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  3 Psychological Perspectives on Prejudice Introduction An enduring feature of ethnic conflict lies in the speed with which unimaginable fury can sometimes be raised. It is as if there is a deep well of emotional forces just waiting to be unleashed under propi- tious circumstances. Whether this is an overly simplistic picture or not, it is perhaps why some people look to psychology for part of the explanation for ethnic conflict. This chapter will examine some of the general themes that emerge from psychological work on pre- judice by focusing on a number of key moments in research and theorising. The first part of the chapter will examine the way in which psychologists examined people’s methods for perceiving and making sense of the world, including their consideration of some of the cognitive processes involved in perception, such as categorisa- tion and stereotyping. The next main section of the chapter will examine two of the main theories of Prejudice that have developed within social psychology, based on research in the US in the 1950s, and in Europe in the 1980s. In the final part of the chapter we will examine some of the themes to emerge from a later body of work where some psychologists have focused on the role of language in the social construction of reality. To close the chapter we will briefly point to some of the implications that arise from the discussion as a whole. The reason for examining these themes from social psycho- logy is the potential insight they provide to the inter-relationships between people, particularly those which seem to foment Prejudice and discrimination. All too often these are characteristics of divided societies. 22 Perception An important theme in psychological work on the way people perceive the world is to recognise that we do not simply receive stimuli in a passive and uninvolved way. Rather, people actively try to understand and make sense of the world.

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  Human Behavior and Public Policy

  A Political Psychology

  • Marshall H. Segall, Arnold P. Goldstein, Leonerd Krenser(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  Putting all this together, the impression is that children who are not expected to do well in school are subject to subtle pressures that serve to constrain their performance. In those cases in which they nevertheless do well, they are viewed as displaying undesirable behavior! It is as if they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Self-fulfilling prophecies, like the one we have just considered, are among the most serious by-products of Prejudice and, simulta-neously, one of the psychological mechanisms which sustain it. But it is only one of many. Prejudice is the larger phenomenon, and it will require a lengthy analysis. Prejudice AND ITS CAUSES Introduction To prejudge is not in itself necessarily wrong. No one ever knows enough, so all of us must sometimes either act on the basis of incomplete information and untested assumptions or not act at all. However, whenever we claim to know without really knowing, or whenever we refuse to accept what is known and act as if it were not so, then we have gone beyond prejudging. Then we are behaving prejudiciously. When Prejudice involves whole categories of human beings, it breeds sociological and psychological pathology and leads to behavior that ranges from unfair discriminatory practices through apartheid to genocide. Sadly, it must be noted that such behavior patterns are common throughout the world, sometimes with the support of governments. Even in nations where the official rhetoric deplores ethnic Prejudice, there is little evidence that people generally understand Prejudice or are able to control its costly manifestations. If intergroup Prejudice is poorly understood, it is not for lack of attention by social scientists. The research literature contains many pertinent findings and many theories as to the causes of Prejudice. However, the findings are diverse and the theories range rather widely.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination

  • John F Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick, Victoria M Esses, John F Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick, Victoria M Esses, SAGE Publications Ltd(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  The second main section of this volume is Basic Processes and Causes of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. This is the largest section of the volume and includes 12 chapters that explore the origins of different forms of bias. The section begins with a chapter on processes at the most micro level, neural processes, and ends with macro processes, the influence of mass media. In the first chapter of the second section, Social Cognitive Neural Processes, Quadflieg, Mason, and Macrae describe the latest findings from studies on intergroup bias in social cognitive neuroscience, considered Prejudice, STEREOTYPING AND DISCRIMINATION 21 in light of current theoretical models of person perception, social cognition, and social categorization. Next, Schaller, Conway, and Peavy, in their chapter Evolutionary Processes, identify two kinds of evolutionary processes contributing to bias, one genetic and the other social that relate to how knowledge is selectively transmitted between individuals. Killen, Richardson, and Kelly then discuss, in Developmental Perspectives, how intergroup attitudes emerge, change, and are manifested throughout development. The next three chapters in the section examine cognitive, affective, and motiva-tional processes in Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. In their chapter, Cog-nitive Processes, Fiske and Russell review social cognitive perspectives on Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination, focusing on underlying thought processes that create and maintain bias. Smith and Mackie follow with a chapter on Affective Processes. The authors explore ways that incidental affect, affect arising from an interaction, and affect experienced when they think of themselves as a member of a social group influences cognitive processes and behavioral reactions.

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  Social Psychology

  • Kenneth S. Bordens, Irwin A. Horowitz(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Being the target of Prejudice has several negative consequences for those who are targeted. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese Americans, many of whom were second and third generation citizens of the United States, were rounded up and sent to internment camps because their loyalty to the United States was questioned. In addition, their homes, businesses and property were also confiscated.

  Ways Prejudice can be Expressed

  In his monumental work on Prejudice called The Nature of Prejudice , Gordon Allport (1954) suggested that there are five ways that Prejudice can be expressed. These are antilocution , talking in terms of Prejudice or making jokes about an out-group; avoidance , avoiding contact with members of an out-group; discrimination , actively doing something to deny members of an out-group something they desire; physical attack , beatings, lynchings, and the like; and extermination , an attempt to eliminate an entire group. One issue we must address is the reaction shown by members of an out-group when they are targeted with Prejudice. It is fairly obvious that those faced with overt discrimination, physical attack, and extermination will respond negatively. But, what about reactions to more subtle forms of Prejudice? What toll do they take on a member of a minority group?

  Janet Swim, Laurie Cohen, and Lauri Hyers (1998) characterized some forms of Prejudice as everyday Prejudice , “recurrent and familiar events that can be considered commonplace” (p. 37). These include short-term interaction such as remarks and stares, and incidents that can be directed at an individual or an entire group. According to Swim and colleagues, such incidents can be initiated either by strangers or by those with intimate relationships with the target and have a cumulative effect and contribute to the target’s experience with and knowledge of Prejudice.

  everyday Prejudice Prejudice that comprises recurrent and familiar events considered to be commonplace.

  Prejudice-BASED JOKES

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