Prejudice and
Discrimination
Prejudice
Prejudice is a prejudgment, usually
negative attitude that is unverified,
and is often towards a particular
group.
It may be based on stereotypes (the
cognitive component) about the
specific group.
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Stereotype
A stereotype is a cluster of ideas
regarding the characteristics of a
specific group.
All members belonging to this group
are assumed to possess these
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characteristics.
Often, stereotypes consist of
undesirable characteristics about the
target group, and they lead to
negative attitudes or prejudices
towards members of specific groups.
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Stereotype
The cognitive component of prejudice
is frequently accompanied by dislike
or hatred, the affective component.
Prejudice may also get translated into
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discrimination (the behavioral
component), whereby people behave
in a less positive way towards a
particular target group compared to
another group which they favor.
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For example, discrimination
based on race and social
class or caste. The genocide
committed by the Nazis in
Germany against Jewish
people is an extreme
example of how prejudice
can lead to hatred,
discrimination and mass
killing of innocent people.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
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Prejudice without
Discrimination:
Imagine a person, Sarah, who holds
deep-seated negative beliefs about
people from a certain cultural
background. She believes that they
are lazy and unintelligent based on
stereotypes she has heard or
learned over time. However, Sarah
never acts upon these beliefs and
treats everyone fairly and equally,
regardless of their cultural
background. In this case, Sarah has
prejudices against a particular
group, but she doesn't discriminate
in her behavior or actions.
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Discrimination
without Prejudice:
Consider a manager, Alex, who
oversees a diverse team of employees.
Alex is committed to treating everyone
fairly and impartially. However, due to
certain organizational policies, Alex is
required to allocate bonuses based on
performance metrics that inadvertently
disadvantage employees who have
recently joined the company. Alex has
no personal bias against these
employees and values their
contributions, but the policy forces
Alex to discriminate against them by
not providing them the same bonus
opportunities as others.
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“DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIOR CAN BE CURBED BY LAW. BUT, THE
COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL COMPONENTS OF PREJUDICE ARE
MORE DIFFICULT TO CHANGE.”
-NCERT TEXTBOOK
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Sources of prejudice
INGROUP BIAS
LEARNING
SCAPEGOATING
SELF FULFILLING
KERNEL OF TRUTH PROPHECY
Learning
Prejudices can also be learned
through association, reward and
punishment, observing others, group
or cultural norms and exposure to
information that encourages
prejudice.
The family, reference groups,
personal experiences and the media
may play a role in the learning of
prejudices.
People who learn prejudiced attitudes
may develop a ‘prejudiced
personality’, and show low adjusting
capacity, anxiety, and feelings of
hostility against the outgroup.
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A strong social identity
and ingroup bias
Individuals who have a strong sense
of social identity and have a very
positive attitude towards their own
group boost this attitude by holding
negative attitudes towards other
groups. These are shown as
prejudices.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
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Scapegoating
It is a phenomenon by which the
majority group places the blame on a
minority outgroup for its own social,
economic or political problems.
The minority is too weak or too small
in number to defend itself against
such accusations.
Scapegoating is a group-based way of
expressing frustration, and it often
results in negative attitudes or
prejudice against the weaker group.
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Example
A company is facing financial difficulties due
to mismanagement, poor decisions, and
economic downturn. Instead of taking
responsibility for these internal issues, the
company's leadership unfairly blames a
department that has been performing well.
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This scapegoating strategy deflects
attention from the real causes of the
company's problems and avoids addressing
their own mistakes. The employees in the
scapegoated department may suffer layoffs,
reduced resources, or reputational damage,
despite not being the main cause of the
financial troubles. This approach creates
tension, injustice, and prevents the
company from making necessary changes
to recover effectively.
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Kernel of truth concept
Sometimes people may continue to
hold stereotypes because they think
that, after all, there must be some
truth, or ‘kernel of truth’ in what
everyone says about the other group.
Even a few examples are sufficient to
support the ‘kernel of truth’ idea.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
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Self-fulfilling
prophecy
In some cases, the group that is the
target of prejudice is itself responsible
for continuing the prejudice as it may
behave in ways that justify the
prejudice i.e. confirm the negative
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expectations.
For example, if the target group is
described as ‘dependent’ and
therefore unable to make progress,
the members of this target group
may actually behave in a way that
proves this description to be true.
In this way, they strengthen the
existing prejudice.
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Example
Imagine a scenario where there is a negative
stereotype that women are not as skilled in
mathematics as men. In a classroom, there is a
female student named Sarah who is an exceptional
math student. However, she is aware of the
stereotype that suggests women are not good at
math.
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When Sarah takes a math test, she becomes anxious
because she doesn't want to confirm the stereotype.
This anxiety affects her concentration and
performance. Despite her abilities, her anxiety and
fear of confirming the stereotype lead her to make
mistakes and perform worse than she is capable of.
In this example, the negative stereotype has led to
self fulfilling prophecy for Sarah. Even though she is
highly skilled in mathematics, her awareness of the
stereotype causes her anxiety and influences her
performance, thereby unintentionally confirming the
stereotype.
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Strategies For
Handling
Prejudice
Strategies For
Handling Prejudice
The strategies for handling prejudice
would be effective if they aim at:
• minimizing opportunities for
learning prejudices
• changing such attitudes
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• de-emphasizing a narrow social
identity based on the ingroup
• discouraging the tendency towards
self-fulfilling prophecy among the
victims of prejudice.
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These goals can be
accomplished through:
HIGHLIGHTING INDIVIDUAL
EDUCATION AND INFORMATION
INCREASING INTERGROUP CONTACT IDENTITY RATHER THAN
DISSEMINATION GROUP IDENTITY
o For correcting It allows for: o It weakens the
o direct communication
stereotypes related o removal of mistrust importance of group
to specific target between the groups (both ingroup and
groups, and tackling o discovery of positive outgroup) as a basis
qualities in the outgroup of evaluating the
the problem of a
strong ingroup bias. However, these strategies are other person.
o Ex: AIDS successful only if:
o the two groups meet in a
cooperative rather than
competitive context
o close interactions between
the groups helps them to
know each other better
o the two groups are not
different in power or status
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Prejudice experiment
Richard LaPiere's study explored
prejudice against Chinese individuals in
the United States. He had a Chinese
couple travel across the country, staying Click icon to add pictu
in various hotels. Despite only one
refusal, questionnaires later sent to hotel
managers indicated a strong reluctance
to accommodate Chinese guests. This
inconsistency between negative attitudes
expressed in the responses and the
positive behavior towards the Chinese
couple demonstrated that attitudes don't
always align with actual behavior. This
study highlights that attitudes might not
accurately predict behavior.
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thank you
Maitreya Medhekar
