In the multi ethnical setting, prejudice is becoming normalized and has synchronized into our day to day lives due to the efforts of government bodies to harmonized people jointly. However, considering that everyone originates from a very different and diverse track record and family situations, there are destined to be misinterpretation and assumptions that people make on a regular basis that is relatively skewed towards or against another group. And with the initiatives of the government bodies to sanction prejudice, it does not necessary imply that prejudice has withered off but instead it could have become an innate thought that has continuing on. In this essay we will look into the psychological theories, principles and researches to comprehend the continued lifetime of prejudice and discrimination within each person, even though our society views it as undesired.
The Aspect of Prejudice
In an individual context, a person's patterns towards a certain group of individuals or people who have distinct differences can be because of the social schemas that a person develops as time passes, through experience and or through public influence. Prejudice serves as a a negative attitude or observable habit towards a certain socially described group or customers of that group. Additionally it is known as prejudgment, the thoughts felt or tendencies portrayed cannot be quantified nor can it be justified. Even though in the present day world, prejudice and discrimination are seen as inappropriate or undesirable, it does remain within each individual and they range in magnitude and intensity individually. In this article, we covers the psychological ideas, concepts and studies to understand the continued life of prejudice and discrimination within each person, even though our modern society views it as unwanted.
In the research done by Kenneth Clark (1914 -2005), on the effects of prejudice, discrimination and segregation have on child development, he demonstrated the consequences by watching the replies of black children, years between two to seven, when they are presented with two units of dolls, differing only by the dolls epidermis and head of hair colors. And from the observation, most the participants would like the white dolls within the black dolls. Apart from that, the study also confirmed that thirty nine percent of the members would choose the white dolls as a representation of themselves. It became obvious that the public norm that children were subjected to pre-defines this is to be socially suitable and socially undesirable. It also designed to steer individuals towards changing themselves emotionally and or actually to be socially desirable in order to belong and fit the cultural norm. And the idea of being socially desired and undesirable results in prejudice and the formation of groups. A vintage example and origins of sociable prejudice can be tracked to the sociable inequalities which suggest and predicts women being assumed to execute better in a caretaker role because they are identified to be unassertive and hypersensitive (Hoffman & Hurst, 1990).
The attitude of prejudice can be described as a composite of three factors the influence of social values have emerged to cause over generalizing of the tendencies of any person and also lead to stereotyping. The thoughts felt by an individual such as hostility and dread, when a person is available to be in a new situation, it predisposes a person to psychologically reply either to feel, think or to act in a way towards an organization or a person when exposed to a certain stimuli in a certain way. The observable activities can be viewed through manners such as discrimination. Prejudice can even be examined in relation to three factors, the severe nature of prejudice, the amount of discrimination and the formation of beliefs, and stereotyping. These factors constitute the basic framework of creating prejudice, as a mental schema that a person can refer to as a guide when situation calls for them. The mental schemas will effect how a person react and interpret the various experiences. Plus the pre-assumptions or conceived ideas in regards to a certain group of people have a tendency to skew one's interpretation of the noticed behaviours and prediction of future activities of the member of the certain group.
Prejudice can be classified into two different types, blatant prejudice and delicate prejudice. Blatant prejudice identifies the open rejection of a certain teams or identifies certain groupings to be inferior compared to them. The actions of blatant prejudice can be easily witnessed which is usually not withheld. A good example of blatant prejudice will come by means of riots and demonstration against an opposing group or person in that one group (Pettigrew, 1998).
The other type is simple prejudice refers to negative emotions experienced towards or from the other group or individuals which are usually being disguised or has been concealed behind other values that allow the person to dislike that certain group in a less direct manner as oppose to blatant prejudice. Some examples of simple prejudices are the belief that the certain groups have become too pushy in hoping more privileges than the rest, the denial of discrimination and the resentment of favoritism (Lambert, 1998).
Prejudice can be unconscious to the people who denies having any racial or gender prejudices, that they could still have negative associations linking to the socially identified group or individual. It is illustrated in the research and it turned out noticed that nine out of ten white individuals of the study took longer time and energy to link enjoyable words with a dark faces than linking enjoyable words to white faces (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). It shows that even though individuals do not acknowledge themselves to be having any stereotypes or discrimination towards a socially identified group or individual, the unconscious habits that was observed illustrates that public beliefs and sociable norms do actually affects a person's view and unconsciously developing prejudice against it.
The other factor that can impact prejudice is the environment that an specific is found to be in. It influences the prejudice behavior of the average person that can either be observed or remains undetected. For instance a person will and can action non-prejudiced when the problem they are in will not require them to. For example, a person makes a non-prejudiced comment towards a prejudiced habit, so as to not offend customers of the other group. In the same course, prejudice can also be strengthened in situations where in fact the sociable norms that govern them are either weakened or ambiguous and it becomes justifiable and regarded satisfactory for negative patterns on the socially described group or person.
In social psychology there have been many theories developed to establish the formulation of prejudice. There is the Psychodynamic or personality way regarding to Freud, prejudice sometimes appears as a response for an unresolved conflict through the phases of child development. He relates it to as a blend of personality characteristics and that the incompatible and unconscious motives and urges which exist in our minds and depending on our comparative strength, moral prices and external fact each one of the motives and urges will determine the conscious thoughts and activities (Freud, 1917).
The socio-cultural strategy suggests that the ethnic factors affects and creates public norms which plays an important role as to what sort of person is predisposed to ends up with formation of prejudiced view of the certain group or individual. A theory derived from this is actually the scapegoat theory which implies that prejudice can even be a manifestation of anger in a way that when things go wrong, the scapegoat provides a convenient psychological outlet and target because of this anger which manipulates and impact people to produce a common goal for the group (Katz, A glass, & Cohen, 1973).
The cognitive way refers to the info processing and cognitive systems of the brain where prejudice develops out of normal mental functions, which can be make clear through stereotyping and categorization. Sociable categorization and stereotyping refers to the formulation of illusionary connection between a certain group and the recognized deficiencies. In addition they categorize people into certain groups and they are categorized predicated on the public norms or traits they are from the others in the same group. People tend to favor the ones that are of their group than those people that are not within the group. Cultural categories are made with association to stereotyping when we encode information in conditions of social categories. Cultural categories are ingrained in somebody who it is easy to get at and prominently they are automatically found in social perception. The need to belong, dictates humans as group bound types in the search attain an identity of self when owned by a group. This is from the negative out-group stereotypes and positive in-group stereotypes that the group which means to be psychologically differentiating and defining the grouping folks and them which also contributes to people displaying favoritism with their own group when dividing any rewards (Wilder, 1981).
Stereotyping provides basic expectations about a certain group and it simplifies conception and evaluation of the individual members. Stereotype make a difference the sort of information that the brain is participating to and how it has been interpreted, they are easily accessible, and prominent that it can automatically be used in social conception to reduce ambiguity during critical situations. The generalization are guided by two elements, the characteristic information concerning what folks of the certain group are like and the expectation of how this group of men and women will react. Stereotyping is challenging to be improved and acts can simply and automatically result in stereotyping. It has a direct effect on the effects on a person's behavior and results in unintentional self-fulfilling prophecies and implicit behavioral results (Mackie, Hamilton, Susskind, & Rosselli, 1996).
The most researched common stereotype is sexism, where guys will be more than always perceived and commonly linked to stronger characteristics and capabilities and on the flip side, females tend to be perceived and linked to weaker characteristics (Fiske, 1998). This stereotype hails from the prejudicial point of view that females are appreciated lesser than men, which is often traced back in history that guys experienced all along been the breadwinner and females takes on the caregiver role and thus leading to the stereotype of women signifies weakness and are better in taking up a more subtle role.
Another typical stereotype that is in accordance with us would be racism, which refers to discrimination against a person based on the individual's race. It is being generalized that folks from the same contest shares the same group of characteristic attributes like capabilities and qualities. And that personality characteristic such as intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral characteristics are also inherited which in turn influence their reason to do something, their practices and their values. However, there are little or no scholarly proof that will abide by the idea of competition. The generalization forms an unintentional discrimination and stereotype towards a certain group and that individuals makes assumptions predicated on this stereotype. Racism assumption also contains discriminatory behaviors and beliefs that can be based on ethnical, ethnic, or spiritual stereotypes.
The romantic relationship between stereotyping and prejudice can be explained through the dissociation model (Devine, 1989). Where stereotyping is the data about the traits stereotypically associated with a particular group and it is automatically activated with stimulus and it can be acquired as soon as during child development before we can critically examine. And that it's more accessible with greater activation and stronger connection overtime. Whereas, prejudice refers to the endorsement and approval or non-acceptance of the ethnic stereotype and that activation of prejudice is known to be controlled and this activation must be with the inhibition of stereotype and it requires time and cognitive capacity. The research implies that both high and low prejudice individuals has equal knowledge of the cultural stereotype. Also, both high and low prejudice person uses stereotyping to judge ambiguous behaviors. And that low prejudiced person exhibited more positive thoughts, beliefs and less hostile explanations. The dissociation model concludes that the partnership between stereotype and prejudice is conditional on the task at hand and that stereotype can have effects on out decision without us making the explicit or mindful wisdom (Devine, 1989).
Social discrimination and prejudice can create a vicious cycle that entraps the average person or group within an illusionary boundary that is hard to get out from. An example of this pattern can originate from as easy as job discrimination, which can determine how much riches a person has and subsequently determines the living environment of the person. The living environment also can determine the amount of education that the kids will receive and thus affect the type of job they'll hold in the future, which places them in a material disadvantage. And the types of discrimination also include reluctance to help, tokenism which refers to intentionally make a fake appearance of inclusiveness and to deflect accusations of discrimination and reverse discrimination (Vaughan & Hogg, 2011). Plus the victims of prejudice can also have problems with psychological disadvantages, low self-esteem, and depressed aspiration, and likewise incorporate physical and verbal abuses. And the results of prejudice can add the least serious type like pre-assumption and prediction of an individual's tendencies from the certain group, to start discrimination of the certain group that could lead to violence against the group and in the long run, extermination of the group and its own members like the holocaust.
It is then noticeable that prejudicial tendencies are almost unavoidable for any specific given the different backgrounds and culture everyone had been brought up in, and the acquisition prejudice may well have took place even before we can comprehend anything. Which results in prejudice both conscious and unconsciously in the decisions that we make in our lifestyle. Therefore, society plays an important role to sanction and subdue any overpowering prejudice against any public discrimination, and that every person should make a mindful work to avoid taking advantage of it as a car for personal profits. And this even though many would publicly deny as having any stereotype or prejudice against someone, prejudice has always been an innate thought process that can and has impact our manners externally.
