Prejudice, Discrimination And Stereotype

Prejudice Presented By: Nor Anisa Bt. Musa

What is Prejudice? • Everyone comes face to face with prejudice at some time or another. • Prejudice is when we recognizethat we feel and act less positively towards others. • The roots of prejudice can be found in the cognitive and emotional processes. • Prejudice may be perceived as acceptable and justified • All inequality and differential treatment is not perceived and responded to in the same way.

The nature and origins of streotyping, prejudice and discrimination • Prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination often overlap. • Prejudice is the feelings we have about particular groups. • Prejudice is a negative prejudgement of a group and its individual members. • Prejudice biases us against others based on the person’s group. • Prejudice is a combination of feelings, inclinations to act and beliefs. • Prejudice is complex and include a component of patronizing affection.

Stereotypes • Stereotypes are the cognitive component attitudes towards a social group. • To stereotypes is to generalize. • It is a belief about what a particular group is like • It is a belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. • It is sometimes over generalized, inaccurate and resistant to new information but can be more or less true.

Discrimination • Discrimination is the behavioural component or differential actions taken towards others • Prejudice is a negative attitude and behaviour, also unjustified behaviour • Attitudes and behaviour reflects our inner convictions • Racism and sexism are practices that discriminate.

Stereotyping: beliefs about social groups • Stereotyping is the belief about social groups in terms of the traits or characteristics that they are deemed to share • Stereotypes are cognitiveframeworks that influence the processes of social information

Gender Stereotypes • Gender stereotypes concern the traits possessed by females and males that distinguish the two genders. • Women are perceived as high on warmth but low on competence • Woman are low in status • Men are perceived as decisive, assertive and accomplished but aggressive, insensitive and arrogant • Men are high status • Women are seen as less appropriate for high status positions • Women are more suitable for support roles.

Glass ceiling • When women violate stereotypec expectancies, they are rejected. • The glass ceiling is a barrier that prevents women from reaching top positions. • Men however get on the glass escalator when they enter female occupations • Women must overcome greater obstacles than men to reach a similar level of success.

Tokens • Tokens make discrimination seem less plausible as an explanation for other women’s lack of success • Tokenism can be an effective strategy for deterring collective protest by disadvantaged groups • Tokenism have two negative effects - It lets prejudiced people off the hook as the presence of a token help maintain the perception that they are not prejudiced - It can damage self-esteem and confidence including to the tokens.

Why do people form and use stereotypes? • Stereotypes function as schemas for organizing, interpreting and recalling information • Stereotypes act as theories, guiding and exerting strong effects on how we process social information • Once they are formed, they shape our perception so that new information is interpreted as confirming our stereotype. We place inconsistencies as ‘subtype’. • Illusory correlation is the perception of a stronger association between two variables than actually exists. It helps explain why negative behaviours are often attributed to members of minority groups.

• Majority groups tend to perceive out-group members as ‘all alike’ (out-group homogeneity) and their own group members as more diverse (in-group differentiation) • Stereotypes change as relations between the groups are altered. Those in power are more likely to negatively stereotype those of less status. • Stereotypic judgment will be stable as long as the nature of the inter-group relationship that exists between any two groups is stable • When values and categorization change, stakes in the present status is altered.

Prejudice and discrimination • Prejudice is an attitude, usually negative towards members of a social group based on their membership • It is dependent on the perceived norms and acceptability of doing so • Information that is consistent with prejudiced views often received closer attention and is remembered more • Prejudice may reflect more specific underlying emotional responses to different out-groups including fear, guilt and disgust. • Discriminatory actions that follow maybe different

Threats to self-esteem • Prejudice persist because disparaging others can protect our self-esteem. • Threats to our group’s interest can motivate prejudice and competition can escalate conflicts • Holding prejudiced views of an out-group allows members to bolster their own group’s image.

Realistic conflict theory • Prejudice stems from direct competition between groups over scarce and valued resources such as land, jobs, housing etc. • As competition escalates, members of opposing groups view each other in increasingly negative terms. • Competition can escalate into full-scale, emotion-laden prejudice.

Social identity theory • Prejudice is derived from our tendency to divide world into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Categorization may be based on race, religion, gender, age occupation. • We view our group more favourably than other out-groups. ‘them’ are assumed to possess more undesirable traits. • Part of people’s self-esteemdepends on identifying with their social group. Strong need to enhance our self-esteem make us see others as inferior.

Discrimination: prejudice in action • Discrimination involves differential actions towards other social groups • Blatant forms of discrimination has decreased because of the law or fear of retaliation. • More subtle forms such as modern racism and ambivalent racism persist. • People with high modern racism may want to hide their prejudice in public settings but express them in private. • Bona fide pipeline in based on the assumption that people are unaware of their prejudices

Why prejudice is not inevitable: Techniques for countering its effects • Group norms and socialization help to perpetuate prejudice. • When people are exposed to derogatory ethnic labels, they can effect responses to the slurred target differently depending on their level of racism. • Exposure to derogatory ethnic labels can elicit conformity pressures with people wanting to fitin. • Prejudice appears to be common. However, it can be reduced.

Learning not to hate • Children acquire negative attitudes because they hear such views expressed by significant others. • Children need to be taught early to reduce prejudice. • People whi come face to face with their own prejudices and are willing to modify their behaviour will lower levels of prejudice in their children

The potential benefits of contact • The contact hypothesis involves bringing previously segregated groups into contact. • Increased contact can lead to growing recognition of similarities. • Positive contact that reflect cooperation and interdependence can change norms so that group equality is favoured.

Recategorization: changing boundries • Prejudice can be reduced by shifting the boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’. • People formerly viewed as out group may now be viewed more positively. • Increased positive contact between previously separate groups reduces inter-group bias. • Groups working together toward shared goals perceive themselves as a single social entity.

Learn to ‘just say no’ • Emotional techniques for reducing prejudice are effective. People with egalitarian standards feel guilty when they violate those beliefs. • They can reduce their automatic activation of stereotypes to behave according to their egalitarian principles. • People can reduce their reliance on stereotypes by consciously saying ‘no’ to association between stereotypes and specific social groups.

Social influence • Social influence plays a role in both maintenance and reduction of prejudice. • Evidence suggesting that members of their group hold less prejudiced views are out of line with most people of their group, they may change their views.