Members of racial or ethnic minority groups in many countries feel that they face discrimination in day-to-day encounters. The World Values Surveys assess prejudicial attitudes through questions on whether respondents would object to having certain groups of people as neighbours as a measure of social distance between groups. Attitudes towards migrants often become more negative in periods of economic insecurity or following large waves of immigration.
The misperceptions that most often lead to negative attitudes include that migrants take away jobs from natives or they commit illegal acts, among others. The following video on undocumented Americans was produced by the American Psychological Association. Can you think of a prejudiced attitude you have held toward a group of people?
Many times prejudice and bias are not obvious and can be found in the form of microaggressions. This article includes a definition, video, and studies on microaggressions. Students of color face countless microaggressions.
These slights of words, actions, and more are not easily always easily identified. How did your prejudice develop? Prejudice often begins in the form of a stereotype—that is, a specific belief or assumption about individuals based solely on their membership in a group, regardless of their individual characteristics. Stereotypes become overgeneralized when applied to all members of a group.
We cannot possibly know each individual person of advanced age to know that all older adults are slow and incompetent. Therefore, this negative belief is overgeneralized to all members of the group, even though many of the individual group members may in fact be spry and intelligent. Another example of a well-known stereotype involves beliefs about racial differences among athletes. As Hodge, Burden, Robinson, and Bennett point out, Black male athletes are often believed to be more athletic, yet less intelligent, than their White male counterparts.
These beliefs persist despite a number of high profile examples to the contrary. Sadly, such beliefs often influence how these athletes are treated by others and how they view themselves and their own capabilities. Whether or not you agree with a stereotype, stereotypes are generally well-known within in a given culture Devine, Sometimes people will act on their prejudiced attitudes toward a group of people, and this behavior is known as discrimination.
As a result of holding negative beliefs stereotypes and negative attitudes prejudice about a particular group, people often treat the target of prejudice poorly, such as excluding older adults from their circle of friends.
The table below summarizes the characteristics of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Have you ever been the target of discrimination? If so, how did this negative treatment make you feel? However, it is important to also point out that people can hold positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward individuals based on group membership; for example, they would show preferential treatment for people who are like themselves—that is, who share the same gender, race, or favorite sports team.
Why are these aspects of an unfamiliar person so important? Although these secondary characteristics are important in forming a first impression of a stranger, the social categories of race, gender, and age are especially salient i.
This information, however, often is based on stereotypes. We may have different expectations of strangers depending on their race, gender, and age. What stereotypes and prejudices do you hold about people who are from a race, gender, and age group different from your own?
What are some stereotypes of various racial or ethnic groups? Racism exists for many racial and ethnic groups. Mexican Americans and other Latinx groups also are targets of racism from the police and other members of the community. For example, when purchasing items with a personal check, Latinx shoppers are more likely than White shoppers to be asked to show formal identification Dovidio et al. In one case of alleged harassment by the police, several East Haven, Connecticut, police officers were arrested on federal charges due to reportedly continued harassment and brutalization of Latinx people.
This statement undermines the important issue of racial profiling and police harassment of Latinx people, while belittling Latinx culture by emphasizing an interest in a food product stereotypically associated with Latinx people.
Have you witnessed racism toward any of these racial or ethnic groups? Are you aware of racism in your community? All WSU students should be encouraged to report instances of racism.
This website shows how students can report discrimination. Sexism is prejudice and discrimination toward individuals based on their sex. Typically, sexism takes the form of men holding biases against women, but either sex can show sexism toward their own or their opposite sex. Like racism, sexism may be subtle and difficult to detect. Common forms of sexism in modern society include gender role expectations, such as expecting women to be the caretakers of the household. For example, women are expected to be friendly, passive, and nurturing, and when women behave in an unfriendly, assertive, or neglectful manner they often are disliked for violating their gender role Rudman, Research by Laurie Rudman finds that when female job applicants self-promote, they are likely to be viewed as competent, but they may be disliked and are less likely to be hired because they violated gender expectations for modesty.
Sexism can exist on a societal level such as in hiring, employment opportunities, and education. Have you ever experienced or witnessed sexism? Why do you think there are differences in the jobs women and men have, such as more women nurses but more male surgeons Betz, ?
People often form judgments and hold expectations about people based on their age. These judgments and expectations can lead to ageism, or prejudice and discrimination toward individuals based solely on their age.
Typically, ageism occurs against older adults, but ageism also can occur toward younger adults. Think of expectations you hold for older adults. Ageism is widespread in U. Some cultures, however, including some Asian, Latinx, and African American cultures, both outside and within the United States afford older adults respect and honor. Ageism can also occur toward younger adults. When prejudice occurs, stereotyping, discrimination, and bullying may also result. In many cases, prejudices are based on stereotypes.
Stereotypes can not only lead to faulty beliefs, but they can also result in both prejudice and discrimination. According to psychologist Gordon Allport , prejudice and stereotypes emerge in part as a result of normal human thinking.
In order to make sense of the world around us, it's important to sort information into mental categories. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends upon it. In other words, we depend upon our ability to place people, ideas, and objects into different categories in order to make the world simpler and easier to understand.
We are simply inundated with too much information to sort through all of it in a logical, methodical, and rational fashion. Being able to quickly categorize information allows us to interact and react quickly, but it also leads to mistakes. Prejudice and stereotyping are just two examples of the mental mistakes that result from our tendency to quickly categorize information in the world around us.
In fact, according to an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science , prejudice comes from a deep psychological need where people who aren't comfortable with ambiguity are prone to make generalizations about others. The process of categorization applies to the social world as well as we sort people into mental groups based on factors such as age, sex, and race. Researchers have found that when it comes to categorizing information about people, we tend to minimize the differences between people in certain groups and exaggerate the differences between groups.
In one classic experiment, participants were asked to judge the height of people shown in photographs. People in the experiment were also told that:. We have taken care to match the heights of the men and women pictured. That is, for every woman of a particular height, somewhere in the booklet there is also a man of that same height. Therefore, in order to make as accurate a height judgment as possible, try to judge each photograph as an individual case; do not rely on the person's sex.
Despite this, participants consistently rated the men as being a few inches taller than the women. Because of their prejudgment that men are taller than women, the participants were unable to dismiss their existing categorical beliefs about men and women in order to judge the heights accurately.
Researchers have also found that people tend to view members of outside groups as being more homogenous than members of their own group, a phenomenon referred to as the out-group homogeneity bias.
This perception that all members of an out-group are alike holds true of all groups, whether based on race, nationality, religion, age, or other naturally occurring group affiliations. People tend to see individual differences among members of their own groups, but they tend to see those who belong to out-groups as being "all the same. In addition to looking at the reasons why prejudice occurs, researchers have also explored different ways that prejudice can be reduced or even eliminated.
Training people to become more empathetic to members of other groups is one method that has shown a considerable success. By imagining 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.
Other techniques that are used to reduce prejudice include:. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter.
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