Definition Essay On Prejudice

Steven Perez

English 102

Dr. Dunn

4/27/2017

Discrimination has found itself tightly woven in with a few terms, so I believe it is important to understand each definition before proceeding. Prejudice is a common human condition that we are all guilty of. I’m sure everyone has been judged at some point or another as well as made uninformed judgments on an individual. Prejudice is a “prejudgment”- an unjustified, typically negative, attitude toward an individual group i.e. (Gender, Ethnic, Socioeconomic Status, Culture). Stereotype is an overgeneralized belief about a particular group of people. It’s to common that people will gawk at the sight of me listening to country music. This is due to the stereotype that is in their mind that is telling

Although stereotypes are frequently seen in a negative light that doesn’t mean they must be. They can also be very accurate. Stereotypes are part of a cognitive process. I have the stereotype that humans are born with five fingers on each hand, birth defects and injuries aside, and that would be found accurate. When stereotypical beliefs combine with prejudicial attitudes and emotions, like fear and hostility, they can drive the behavior we call Discrimination. Someone may have prejudice views on a group but until they act on it, they have not discriminated. I.e. You are an employer that seems to follow the stereotype that veterans are trained to be mindless drones. You then get a prejudice distaste of the notion of you possibly employing veterans. When you as the employer act upon your prejudice emotion and decide not to hire veterans

I did not find all reason as to why, but here are a few to ponder at. The “In-group Out-group Phenomenon” known by most psychologist which suggest people categorize themselves with like individuals to find communal solidarity and a sort of safety with numbers. This in-group bias, or tendency to favor our own group at the expense of others, is powerful, even when it’s totally irrational. Psychologist have done experiments on in-group favoritism by separating people into two arbitrary groups. The groups can be distinguished by some simple difference such as people who wear earrings and those who do not. Each person sits in their group and is told to make a list of characteristics that make themselves different from the opposing group. The list typically starts off tamed, but as the list gets longer it also grows unstable. Soon enough you have the group with earrings saying they are much smarter than those without or that the group without earrings say the other group is low class and trashy. Soon enough, each group has inflated itself and mocked the opposing group, even though the division between the two was essentially meaningless to begin