1. Define and describe the following terms: prejudice, stereotype, discrimination, and ingroup vs. outgroup. Based on your own experiences in the social world, can you relate to any of these terms? Do you identify with a particular term? Why or why not?
In general, prejudices refer to “deeply held negative feelings associated with a
particular group” (Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009, p. 173). Such sentiments often include anxiety, aversion, fear, and anger. They also refer to an irrational or rigid generalization about a category of people where other people hold inflexible attitudes towards these groups even with little or no direct evidence. They can target people of a certain ethnicity, race, political affiliation, age, sexual orientation, sex, or social class (Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009).
Stereotypes, on the other hand, are “the labels used to recognize over-generalized positive or negative features of specific social groups or types of individuals” (Milan, Russel., Ronan, Spring & Martinovski, n.d., p. 1). They are seldom completely untrue and must have an element of social recognition.
Discrimination occurs when someone is treated differently or arbitrarily or is harassed just because they belong to a group of people who share common characteristics such as disability, sexual orientation, age, familial status, marital status, national origin, ancestry, religion, gender, color, and race (“Human Rights,” 2011). Finally, the term ingroup refers to “a group with which people identify and to which they feel closely attached, particularly based on hatred or opposition toward another group” (Ferrante, 2010, p. 101), which would be referred to as the outgroup. An outgroup, on the other hand, refers to a group of people towards whom members of the ingroup feel a sense of opposition, separateness, or hatred.
I can relate and identify with all of these terms because I see instances of them everyday. For example, as a woman, I constantly find myself having to prove myself among people I don’t know well (e.g. in a new job) just because of the stereotype that women are inferior to men. I also often see people who internally cringe at the sight of a poor and dirty old man who’s lying by the side of the road (discrimination) or of parents not agreeing to their children’s inter-racial relationship (prejudice). Moreover, I always hear about bullying incidents over the news, which can be attributed to kids’ classification of who they consider as popular or unpopular (ingroup vs. outgroup).
2. Examine the social, cognitive, and societal origins of prejudice and stereotypes. Be sure to include specific information regarding categorization, such as ingroup favoritism and the outgroup homogeneity effect, norms, competition for resources, and social inequalities. Of the categories presented, which do you think are the most significant in our society and in your particular community?
One of the origins of prejudice and stereotypes is social categorization where people are
classified based on similar attributes (Ferguson, 2004). Other origins are ingroup favoritism, which refers to people being more helpful towards members of their own group than towards members of other groups (Fu et al.., 2012), and the outgroup homogeneity effect, which has the assumption that there are more similarities among the characteristics of the outgroup than the ingroup. This is caused by the ingroup members not having much exposure to the outgroup members; thus, preventing the ingroup members from learning about the individual idiosyncrasies of the outgroup members.
Still another origin of prejudice and stereotypes is socialization where prejudices are passed down from parents to their children and where the media is responsible for spreading stereotypes and demeaning images of various groups (“Prejudice and Discrimination,” 2012). As well, prejudice is considered as a way of gaining the social support of important people and as a way of conforming to the views of associates, friends, and families. Moreover, prejudice is caused by the direct competition among groups for jobs, which increases the incidence of prejudice during social and economic stress.
People with an authoritarian personality are also prone to prejudice as they submit to their superiors without question, are intolerant of religious and sexual opinions, reject those whom they consider inferiors, and rigidly conform. Ethnocentrism is still another cause of prejudice and stereotype, as people tend to evaluate the culture of others based on their own cultural values and norms. It also involves a suspicious feeling towards others. Similarly, group closure is where groups have distinct boundaries between themselves and others and the conflict theory suggests that prejudice occurs because of people’s desire to hold on to their distinctive possessions, power, and social status. The privileged groups want to ensure that they don’t have to compete with the minority groups for resources.
I think that the most significant of these categories are socialization and ethnocentrism. Socialization because as long as parents pass on their prejudiced beliefs to their children and as long as the media continues to portray inequalities among groups of people then prejudices and stereotypes will not be eradicated. As well, ethnocentrism stems from our cultural differences. These cultural differences will not be eradicated as the world is composed of people with distinct beliefs, values, and cultures, so unless we learn to accept these differences and see each other as equals then prejudices and stereotypes will remain to be a part of our society.
3. Analyze the influences that promote stereotyping, and offer strategies to reduce prejudice. What are the consequences of stereotyping and discrimination? Who does this behavior hurt, and in what ways does it hurt them? Are we inadvertently creating self-fulfilling prophecies in our society? If so, how can we take steps to improve attitudes, judgments, and behaviors?
Some of the consequences of stereotyping and discrimination include decreased
test and task performance; attribution of one’s failure to one’s internal characteristics; reactance (the stereotype over achieves); ironic effects (e.g. a threat of confirming the stereotype increases behavior that confirms the stereotype); self-handicapping; task discounting; distancing of oneself from the stereotyped group; disidentfication and disengagement; and altered professional aspirations and identities (“What are the Consequences,” n.d.). These behaviors hurt mostly the stereotyped groups but also everyone in society because stereotypes pressure people to conform to these stereotypes or to believe in these stereotypes just because everybody does so. This then results in limited perspectives and ways of thinking. As such, this also leads to self-fulfilling prophecies as we tend to judge ourselves and others based on these stereotypes without giving ourselves and others the chance to prove otherwise.
Some of the ways by which attitudes, judgments, and behaviors can be improved include task reframing; de-emphasizing of the threatened social identities; encouragement of self-affirmation; emphasis on high standards with assurances on the capability for meeting them; promotion of role models; promotion of external attributions for difficulty; and emphasis on an incremental view of intelligence.
References
Ferguson, T. J. (2004). Chapter 5: Perceiving groups (Prejudice, stereotyping, and Discrimination). Retrieved from http://www.usu.edu/psy3510/prejudice.html.
Ferrante, J. (2010, January 1). Sociology: A global perspective (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Fu, F., Tarnita, C. E., Christakis, N. A., Wang, L., Rand, D. G & Nowak, M. A. (2012, June 21). Evolution of in-group favoritism. Scientific Reports, 2 (460).
Human rights. (2011, September 14).Retrieved from http://alexandriava.gov/humanrights/info/default.aspx?id=368
Milan, A. G., Russel, D., Ronan, P., Spring, D. & Martinovski, B. (n.d.). Globalization of stereotypes. University of Boras, Sweden.
Prejudice and discrimination. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Prejudice-and-Discrimination.topicArticleId-26957,articleId-26886.html
Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R. (2009, February 13). Communication between cultures. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
What are the consequences of stereotype threat. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://reducingstereotypethreat.org/consequences.html
