Abc Model Of Prejudice

A.

Prejudice can literally be translated as prejudgement and is generally used by social psychologists to describe an unwarranted attitude towards a group or an individual based on their membership within a group. A prejudice however, does not necessarily be acted upon. The attitudes of a prejudice can be described using three main components, otherwise known as the ABC model of attitudes; affective, behavioural and cognitive components. The affective component focuses on strong feelings/emotions towards the individual or group, the behavioural component focuses on how the attitudes involved affects how the individual behaves and the cognitive component of prejudice focuses on the perceptions and ideas that form a stereotype about an individual

They superior group quickly became more aggressive and arrogant towards the inferior group with Elliot stating “I watched what had been marvellous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating, little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes.” It is thought that the feelings experienced by these children would help build up a tolerance against discrimination as they grew older. (Boutlon, n.d.)

Discuss theories which have attempted to explain the origins and maintenance of prejudice and discrimination.

There are three main theories which have attempted to explain the origins and maintenance of prejudice and discrimination. The Authoritarian Personality theory deals with personalities as the origin to prejudice and discrimination, Realistic Conflict Theory suggests that prejudice and discrimination can arise from conflicts of interest between two social groups, coupled with environmental factors and Social Identity Theory puts forward that prejudice and discrimination will only develop when people are categorised into in-groups and out-groups. (Haralambous, 2002, pp

He previously described how individuals seek to understand their social status, however he takes this further and suggests two further ideas that individuals endeavour for self-esteem and that membership of a social group affords people with a lot of their personal identity. Social Identity Theory adopts the concept that people strive to see themselves in a positive way and as part of this self-perception comes from their social group, they tend to favour their own in group and cultivate an adverse out group bias. Tajfel et al. tried to show this in 1950 through minimal group experiments. In one of these people were split into groups, partakers were then asked to distribute money to individuals in each group. The outcome was that even if it cost them money, they would not distribute a higher sum of money to the out group. Even with minimal groups, in groups and out groups were formed and individuals fell into the role of discriminating against the out group. Social identity theory therefore comes to the deduction that prejudice is inescapable when an individual is part of a group. (Haralambous, 2002, pp