Prejudice And Stereotyping A Social Psychological Perspective - amazonia.fiocruz.br

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This paper will discuss the impacts of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination in the context of social psychology. It shall start by first defining the term for better understanding. Prejudice is the negative attitude that one has towards something usually a group of people, the attitude may also be unfair, unfavorable or intolerant based on no justified reason. It is passed from one generation to another. Stereotype is the belief that one has certain perception about people on the basis of them being members of a certain group. The basis of the stereotypes relies on factors like ethnicity, gender, nationality or even the occupation of a person or groups in many societies. Discrimination is the act of recognizing, observing and through the differentiation of distinguished features; choice is made that shows bias and prejudice. It can be based on hatred of a race, looks, gender, or a certain group because of stereotyping. Prejudice And Stereotyping A Social Psychological Perspective.

Prejudice And Stereotyping A Social Psychological Perspective Video

An Introduction to Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice- A Macat Psychology Analysis

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When we hold a stereotype about a person, we have expectations that he or she will fulfill that stereotype. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true.

When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations. This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs.

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Research by Rosenthal and Jacobson found that disadvantaged students whose teachers expected them to perform well had higher grades than disadvantaged students whose teachers expected them to do poorly. Psychllogical this example of cause and effect in a self-fulfilling prophecy: If an employer expects an openly gay male job applicant to be incompetent, the potential employer might treat the applicant negatively during the interview by engaging in less conversation, making little eye contact, and generally behaving coldly toward the applicant Hebl et al.

In turn, the job applicant will perceive that the potential employer dislikes him, and he will respond by giving shorter responses to interview questions, making less eye contact, and generally disengaging from the interview. Do you think this job applicant is likely to be hired?

Treating individuals according to stereotypic beliefs can lead to prejudice and discrimination. Another dynamic that can reinforce stereotypes is confirmation bias. When interacting with the target of our prejudice, we tend to pay attention to information that is consistent with our stereotypic expectations and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. In the job interview example, the employer may not have noticed that the job applicant was friendly and engaging, and that he provided competent responses to the interview questions in the beginning of the interview.

Have you ever fallen prey to the self-fulfilling prophecy or confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias? How might we stop the cycle of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Social class stereotypes of individuals tend to arise when information about the individual is ambiguous. If information is unambiguous, stereotypes do not tend to arise Baron et al.]