Prejudices Examples

[Elisabetta Buendia]

Peoplecan develop prejudices based on just about any characteristic, but certain groups are targeted more often than others. According to the United Nations, people of African Descent are among the most discriminated-against groups around the world. Many also hold prejudices against migrants, refugees, women, people living in poverty, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and ethnic minorities. The reasons vary, but historical oppression plays a big role in which groups receive the most prejudiced treatment. If a group has been the subject of prejudiced beliefs and stereotypes for a long time, they tend to keep being targeted.

Racial prejudice manifests as negative feelings and attitudes towards people based on their ethnicity or perceived ethnicity. It commonly targets ethnic minorities, which manifests as structural or institutional discrimination, but people can hold racial prejudices against any race/ethnicity.

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Prejudice[1] can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership.[2] The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived personal characteristics, such as political affiliation, sex, gender, gender identity, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, culture, complexion, beauty, height, body weight, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other perceived characteristics.[3]

The word "prejudice" can also refer to unfounded or pigeonholed beliefs[4][5] and it may apply to "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".[6] Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience".[7] Auestad (2015) defines prejudice as characterized by "symbolic transfer", transfer of a value-laden meaning content onto a socially-formed category and then on to individuals who are taken to belong to that category, resistance to change, and overgeneralization.[8]

The United Nations Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility has highlighted research considering prejudice as a global security threat due to its use in scapegoating some populations and inciting others to commit violent acts towards them and how this can endanger individuals, countries, and the international community.[9]

The word prejudice has been used since Middle English around the year 1300. It comes from the Old French word prjudice, which comes from Latin praeiūdicium which comes from prae (before) and iūdicium (judgment).

The first psychological research conducted on prejudice occurred in the 1920s. This research attempted to prove white supremacy. One article from 1925 which reviewed 73 studies on race concluded that the studies seemed "to indicate the mental superiority of the white race".[10] These studies, along with other research, led many psychologists to view prejudice as a natural response to races believed to be inferior.

In the 1930s and 1940s, this perspective began to change due to the increasing concern about anti-Semitism due to the ideology of the Nazis. At the time, theorists viewed prejudice as pathological and they thus looked for personality syndromes linked with racism. Theodor Adorno believed that prejudice stemmed from an authoritarian personality; he believed that people with authoritarian personalities were the most likely to be prejudiced against groups of lower status. He described authoritarians as "rigid thinkers who obeyed authority, saw the world as black and white, and enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies".[11]

In 1954, Gordon Allport, in his classic work The Nature of Prejudice, linked prejudice to categorical thinking. Allport claimed that prejudice is a natural and normal process for humans. According to him, "The human mind must think with the aid of categories... Once formed, categories are the basis for normal prejudgment. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends upon it."[12] In his book, he emphasizes the importance of the contact hypothesis. This theory posits that contact between different (ethnic) groups can reduce prejudices against those groups. Allport acknowledges the importance of the circumstances in which such contact occurs. He has attached conditions to it to promote positive contact and reduce prejudices.

In the 1970s, research began to show that prejudice tends to be based on favoritism towards one's own groups, rather than negative feelings towards another group. According to Marilyn Brewer, prejudice "may develop not because outgroups are hated, but because positive emotions such as admiration, sympathy, and trust are reserved for the ingroup".[13]

In 1979, Thomas Pettigrew described the ultimate attribution error and its role in prejudice. The ultimate attribution error occurs when ingroup members "(1) attribute negative outgroup behavior to dispositional causes (more than they would for identical ingroup behavior), and (2) attribute positive outgroup behavior to one or more of the following causes: (a) a fluke or exceptional case, (b) luck or special advantage, (c) high motivation and effort, and (d) situational factors"/[11]

Young-Bruehl (1996) argued that prejudice cannot be treated in the singular; one should rather speak of different prejudices as characteristic of different character types. Her theory defines prejudices as being social defences, distinguishing between an obsessional character structure, primarily linked with anti-semitism, hysterical characters, primarily associated with racism, and narcissistic characters, linked with sexism.[14]

The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception that members of an out-group are more similar (homogenous) than members of the in-group. Social psychologists Quattrone and Jones conducted a study demonstrating this with students from the rival schools Princeton University and Rutgers University.[15] Students at each school were shown videos of other students from each school choosing a type of music to listen to for an auditory perception study. Then the participants were asked to guess what percentage of the videotaped students' classmates would choose the same. Participants predicted a much greater similarity between out-group members (the rival school) than between members of their in-group.

The justification-suppression model of prejudice was created by Christian Crandall and Amy Eshleman.[16] This model explains that people face a conflict between the desire to express prejudice and the desire to maintain a positive self-concept. This conflict causes people to search for justification for disliking an out-group, and to use that justification to avoid negative feelings (cognitive dissonance) about themselves when they act on their dislike of the out-group.

The realistic conflict theory states that competition between limited resources leads to increased negative prejudices and discrimination. This can be seen even when the resource is insignificant. In the Robber's Cave experiment,[17] negative prejudice and hostility was created between two summer camps after sports competitions for small prizes. The hostility was lessened after the two competing camps were forced to cooperate on tasks to achieve a common goal.

Another contemporary theory is the integrated threat theory (ITT), which was developed by Walter G Stephan.[18] It draws from and builds upon several other psychological explanations of prejudice and ingroup/outgroup behaviour, such as the realistic conflict theory and symbolic racism.[19] It also uses the social identity theory perspective as the basis for its validity; that is, it assumes that individuals operate in a group-based context where group memberships form a part of individual identity. ITT posits that outgroup prejudice and discrimination is caused when individuals perceive an outgroup to be threatening in some way. ITT defines four threats:

Realistic threats are tangible, such as competition for a natural resource or a threat to income. Symbolic threats arise from a perceived difference in cultural values between groups or a perceived imbalance of power (for example, an ingroup perceiving an outgroup's religion as incompatible with theirs). Intergroup anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness experienced in the presence of an outgroup or outgroup member, which constitutes a threat because interactions with other groups cause negative feelings (e.g., a threat to comfortable interactions). Negative stereotypes are similarly threats, in that individuals anticipate negative behaviour from outgroup members in line with the perceived stereotype (for example, that the outgroup is violent). Often these stereotypes are associated with emotions such as fear and anger. ITT differs from other threat theories by including intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes as threat types.

Additionally, social dominance theory states that society can be viewed as group-based hierarchies. In competition for scarce resources such as housing or employment, dominant groups create prejudiced "legitimizing myths" to provide moral and intellectual justification for their dominant position over other groups and validate their claim over the limited resources.[20] Legitimizing myths, such as discriminatory hiring practices or biased merit norms, work to maintain these prejudiced hierarchies.

Prejudice can be a central contributing factor to depression.[21] This can occur in someone who is a prejudice victim, being the target of someone else's prejudice, or when people have prejudice against themselves that causes their own depression.

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