Prejudice can be an
affective
Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood.
History
The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling. ...
feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or
classification of another person based on that person's perceived
political affiliation
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
,
sex
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...
,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
,
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
,
belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...
s,
values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
,
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
,
age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...
,
disability
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, dev ...
,
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
,
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
,
race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
,
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
,
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
,
nationality
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
,
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
,
complexion
Complexion in humans is the natural color, texture, and appearance of the skin, especially on the face.
History
The word "complexion" is derived from the Late Latin ''complexi'', which initially referred in general terms to a combination of thi ...
,
beauty
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
,
height
Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is).
For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is abou ...
,
body weight
Human body weight is a person's mass or weight.
Strictly speaking, body weight is the measurement of weight without items located on the person. Practically though, body weight may be measured with clothes on, but without shoes or heavy accessor ...
,
occupation
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
,
wealth
Wealth is the abundance of Value (economics), valuable financial assets or property, physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for financial transaction, transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the ...
,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
,
criminality
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
,
sport-team affiliation,
music tastes or other personal characteristics.
The word "prejudice" can also refer to unfounded or
pigeonholed
Pigeonholing is a process that attempts to classify disparate entities into a limited number of categories (usually, mutually exclusive ones).
The term usually carries connotations of criticism, implying that the classification scheme referred t ...
beliefs and it may apply to "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".
Gordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personal ...
defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience".
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.
Etymology
Historical approaches
The first
psychological research
Psychological research refers to research that psychologists conduct for systematic study and for analysis of the experiences and behaviors of individuals or groups. Their research can have educational, occupational and clinical application ...
conducted on prejudice occurred in the 1920s. This research attempted to prove
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
. One article from 1925 which reviewed 73 studies on race concluded that the studies seemed "to indicate the mental superiority of the white race". 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
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
due to the ideology of the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
. At the time, theorists viewed prejudice as pathological and they thus looked for personality syndromes linked with
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
.
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blueger, ...
believed that prejudice stemmed from an
authoritarian personality
The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term ''authoritarian personality'' originated from the writings of Erich Fro ...
; 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
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
, and enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies".
[Plous, S.]
The Psychology of Prejudice
. Understanding Prejudice.org. Web. 07 Apr. 2011.
In 1954,
Gordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personal ...
, in his classic work ''
The Nature of Prejudice
''The Nature of Prejudice'' is a 1954 social psychology book by American psychologist Gordon Allport, on the topic of prejudice.
Content
The book was written by Gordon Allport in the early 1950s and first published by Addison-Wesley in 1954. Th ...
'', 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."
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".
In 1979,
Thomas Pettigrew
Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (28 October 1791 – 23 November 1865), sometimes known as "Mummy" Pettigrew, was a surgeon and antiquarian who became an expert on Ancient Egyptian mummies. He became well known in London social circles for his private ...
described the
ultimate attribution error The ultimate attribution error is a type of attribution error which proposed to explain why attributions of outgroup behavior is more negative (ie. antisocial or undesirable) than ingroup behavior (see '' in-group and out-group''). Ultimate attrib ...
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"/
Youeng-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.
Contemporary theories and empirical findings
The
out-group homogeneity
The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group ...
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
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
and
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
. 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. This model explains that people face a conflict between the desire to express prejudice and the desire to maintain a positive
self-concept
In the psychology of self, one's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question ''"Who am I? ...
. This conflict causes people to search for justification for disliking an out-group, and to use that justification to avoid negative feelings (
cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. ...
) about themselves when they act on their dislike of the out-group.
The
realistic conflict theory
Realistic conflict theory (RCT), also known as realistic group conflict theory (RGCT), is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict. The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition ...
states that competition between limited
resources
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their a ...
leads to increased negative prejudices and discrimination. This can be seen even when the resource is insignificant. In the Robber's Cave experiment, 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 Integrated threat theory, also known as intergroup threat theory
is a theory in psychology and sociology which attempts to describe the components of perceived threat that lead to prejudice between social groups. The theory applies to any social gr ...
(ITT), which was developed by Walter G Stephan. 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
Symbolic racism (also known as modern-symbolic racism, modern racism, symbolic prejudice, and racial resentment) is a coherent belief system that reflects an underlying one-dimensional prejudice towards a racialized ethnicity. These beliefs incl ...
. It also uses the
social identity theory
Social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevance, relevant social group.
As originally formulated by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, John Turner in the 1970s ...
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
* Symbolic threats
* Intergroup anxiety
* Negative stereotypes
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 Social dominance theory (SDT) is a social psychological theory of intergroup relations that examines the caste-like features of group-based social hierarchies, and how these hierarchies remain stable and perpetuate themselves. According to the theo ...
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. 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.
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.
Paul Bloom argues that while prejudice can be irrational and have terrible consequences, it is natural and often quite rational. This is because prejudices are based on the human tendency to categorise objects and people based on prior experience. This means people make predictions about things in a category based on prior experience with that category, with the resulting predictions usually being accurate (though not always). Bloom argues that this process of categorisation and prediction is necessary for survival and normal interaction, quoting William Hazlitt, who stated "Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way my across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life".
In recent years, researchers have argued that the study of prejudice has been traditionally too narrow. It is argued that since prejudice is defined as a negative affect towards members of a group, there are many groups against whom prejudice is acceptable (such as rapists, men who abandon their families, pedophiles, neo-Nazis, drink-drivers, queue jumpers, murderers etc.), yet such prejudices aren't studied. It has been suggested that researchers have focused too much on an evaluative approach to prejudice, rather than a descriptive approach, which looks at the actual psychological mechanisms behind prejudiced attitudes. It is argued that this limits research to targets of prejudice to groups deemed to be receiving unjust treatment, while groups researchers deem treated justly or deservedly of prejudice are overlooked. As a result, the scope of prejudice has begun to expand in research, allowing a more accurate analysis of the relationship between psychological traits and prejudice.
Some researchers had advocated looking into understanding prejudice from the perspective of collective values than just as biased psychological mechanism and different conceptions of prejudice, including what lay people think constitutes prejudice. This is due to concerns that the way prejudice has been operationalised does not fit its psychological definition and that it is often used to indicate a belief is faulty or unjustified without actually proving this to be the case.
Some research has connected
dark triad
The dark triad is a psychological theory of personality, first published by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes three notably offensive, but non-pathological personality types: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, ...
personality traits (
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism or Machiavellian may refer to:
Politics
*Machiavellianism (politics), the supposed political philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli
*Political realism
Psychology
*Machiavellianism (psychology), a personality trait centered on cold an ...
, grandiose
narcissism
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissism exists on a co ...
, and
psychopathy
Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent Anti-social behaviour, antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and Boldness, bold, Disinhibition, disinhibited, and Egotism, egotistical B ...
) with being more likely to hold racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, and transphobic views.
Types of Prejudice
One can be prejudiced against or have a preconceived notion about someone due to any characteristic they find to be unusual or undesirable. A few commonplace examples of prejudice are those based on someone's race, gender, nationality, social status, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation, and controversies may arise from any given topic.
Gender Identity
Transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
and
non-binary
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
people can be discriminated against because they identify with a gender that does not align with their
assigned sex at birth. Refusal to call them by their preferred pronouns, or claims that they are not the gender they identify as could be considered discrimination if it occurs in the right circumstances. Especially if the victim of this discrimination has expressed repetitively what their preferred identity is.
Gender Identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
is now considered a protected category of discrimination. Therefore, severe cases of this discrimination can lead to criminal penalty or
prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial ...
(not to be confused with
persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...
; a term that is
synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
ous with
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
.), and workplaces are required to protect against discrimination based on Gender Identity.
Sexism
Sexism, also called
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
, is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's
sex or gender
Though the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' have been used interchangeably since at least the fourteenth century, in contemporary academic literature they usually have distinct meanings. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while ...
(while related, these two concepts are not the same.
Sex
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...
is based on an assessment of biological factors, while
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
relates to one's identity..) Sexism can affect any gender, but it is particularly documented as affecting
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...
and
girl
A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary ...
s more often (more broadly, the
female
Female (Venus symbol, symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ovum, ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the Sperm, male gamete during sexual reproduction.
A female has larger gamet ...
correlated_
In_statistics,_correlation__or_dependence__is_any_statistical_relationship,_whether_causal_or_not,_between_two_random_variables_or_bivariate_data._Although_in_the_broadest_sense,_"correlation"_may_indicate_any_type_of_association,_in_statistics__...
_gender_of_''Homo_sapiens''._Although,_it_does_not_always_match._See:_
Transgender_
A_transgender_(often_abbreviated_as_trans)_person_is_someone_whose_gender_identity_or_gender_expression_does_not_correspond_with_their_sex_assigned_at_birth._Many_transgender_people_experience_dysphoria,_which_they_seek_to_alleviate_through__tr_...
,_Non-binary_gender.html" "title="Correlation.html" "title="elates to sex, but can be used to describe the Correlation">correlated