Prejudice and Discrimination
Prejudiceand Discrimination
Prejudiceand Discrimination
Theworld comprises of people from different ethnic communities withdiverse cultures and beliefs. It is a common trend to see individualsviewing themselves superior to the others, and this creates socialgroups. Human beings feel powerful when they regard themselves tohave come from a culture that is considered to have a higher statusin the society. For this case, the essay focuses on describing thecauses of prejudice and discrimination in our society and identifiessome techniques for reducing the development of the same.
Prejudiceand discrimination surround itself among dominant and minoritygroups. The dominant society forces the minority to either act likethem or become extinct hence, conflict arises between the twogroups. The United States destroyed about half of the Indianpopulation because they did not share their ideologies. The Britishdestroyed the Tasmanian community due to the diseases they brought tothe island (Simpson & Yinger, 2013). These are just a fewexamples that illustrate how the dominant groups oppress theminority. Simpson and Yinger (2013) define prejudice as an emotional,rigid attitude towards a group of people. The authors definediscrimination as the drawing of distinction, which results in theviolation of conventional procedures in the society.
Onefactor that contributes to prejudice and discrimination is intergroupconflict. Tension arises when for instance a minority group with thesame educational qualifications and experience receives minimal paythan a majority group. Additionally, intergroup conflict arises dueto differences in unemployment rates. The job market in America isgoing through a significant amount of applicants ranging from blacksto women in search for jobs. The effects of the increasing number ofunemployed persons result in impersonal forces that accentuate due topersistent discrimination. Equally important, the struggle for powerand prestige also results in prejudice and discrimination.Ethnocentrism and prejudice grew due to the minor conflicts betweencountries and, boundaries, labels, and group loyalties began toexist (Simpson & Yinger, 2013). Religious differentiations aredominant factors that result in prejudice and discrimination becauseindividuals nowadays fight their colleagues by claiming that they arenatively inferior.
Psychologistsalso identified personality and individual differences as primarycauses of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudiced people exhibitrigidity, concreteness, and intolerance of ambiguity. Authoritarianpersonality develops in a person due to childhood experiences withpunitive parents (Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick, & Esses, 2010). Theauthors also identified social categorization as a causal agent inprejudice and discrimination. Human beings have a tendency tocategorize each other based on group membership rather than viewingthem as individuals. Social identity explains how a person describesand ranges the self as a separate individual with personal motives.Social identification and separation result in prejudice anddiscrimination because the individual begins viewing the self as moresuperior than the others do.
Techniquesto reduce the development of prejudice and discrimination includeindividual-level processes such as stereotype suppression, intergroupcontact, and workplace intervention (Whitley & Kite, 2009).People should stop individuating information as these results instereotypes. Individuals have to put in the effort to keep theirsuppressed thoughts under control so that they can draw forces thatsupport self-control. Moreover, intergroup contact should beemphasized because interactions between individuals transform theirbeliefs towards others. The different groups of people should engagein cooperative activities to achieve a mutual understanding.Workplace interventions are crucial for creating diverseorganizations to help employees work more effectively andefficiently: The strategies include affirmative action and valuingdiversity.
Itis evident that prejudice and discrimination do harm the society invarious ways leading to racial segregation, stereotyping, and socialcategorization. Human beings have adopted the negative behaviors thatcreate unequal balance and distribution of resources in the society.However, techniques exists that can be employed to reduce instancesof prejudice and discrimination if adhered to correctly.
References
Dovidio,J. F., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses, V. M. (2009).Prejudice,stereotyping and
discrimination:Theoretical and empirical overview. Retrievedfromhttps://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b1ce/a4d91d9593ba5b9790c8159bf35004cd8ac5.pdf
Simpson,G. E., & Yinger, J. M. (2013). Racialand cultural minorities: An analysis of prejudice and discrimination(2nded.). New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Whitley,B. E., Kite, M.E. (2009). Thepsychology of prejudice and discrimination.Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
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