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Block 3 Unit 3 Prejudice and Discrimination

1. What is prejudice?

• Prejudice is defined as an attitude that predisposes a person to think, perceive, feel, and act in favourable and unfavourable ways towards a group or its individual members.
• It is generally a negative attitude towards the members of a social, ethnic, or religious group.
• Prejudice is an attitude with affective, cognitive, and behavioural components.

2. What are the characteristics of prejudice?

• Prejudice is a preconceived judgement, not based on reason or actual experience.
• It is inflexible and resistant to change, even in the face of contradictory evidence.
• It is often based on generalisations and stereotypes about a group.
• Prejudice is functional, helping individuals justify their hostilities, repressed desires, and strengthen feelings of self-esteem and prestige, and rationalize exploitation.
• Prejudice has no connection with reality, based primarily on hearsay, incomplete or wrong information, and societal customs, not logic.

3. What are the various types of prejudice? Give suitable examples.

• Racial prejudice: Directed at members of another race (e.g., prejudice against Black people by white people).
• Sex prejudice: Prejudice against women, often viewing them as weak, dependent, and intellectually inferior to men.
• Religious prejudice: Holding a positive attitude towards one's own religion and an unfavourable attitude towards other religions (e.g. religious conflict in India between Hindus and Muslims).
• Other forms of prejudice include political prejudice and communal prejudice.

4. What is discrimination?

• Discrimination is the actual behaviour or actions that result from prejudice.
• It involves treating people differently based on their membership in a particular group.
• It can manifest as an individual act or at an institutional level.

• Causal Factors:
• Social Learning: Children learn prejudiced attitudes from parents, peers, and societal norms.
• Group Identification: People have a natural tendency to favour their own group (in-group) and devalue out-groups, leading to prejudice.
• Personality Needs: Certain personality needs like intolerance for ambiguity, a need to achieve superior status or a need for security can foster prejudiced behaviour.
• Maintenance Factors:
  • Social Norms: Prejudiced attitudes are perpetuated when they become ingrained in a culture or society.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: When negative expectations about a group cause members to behave in ways that confirm these expectations, it perpetuates prejudice.
  • Cognitive Biases: People tend to interpret information in ways that support their pre-existing prejudices.
  • Motivation: Prejudice is sustained when it serves psychological needs, like preserving self-esteem by comparing to outgroups.
  • Intergroup Contact: Limited or negative contact with out-groups can also maintain prejudiced behaviours.

6. Present the theoretical approaches in regard to the maintenance factors of prejudice.

• Social Identity Theory: This theory suggests that individuals classify themselves into social groups, which can lead to favouritism towards their in-group and prejudice towards out-groups.
• Realistic Conflict Theory: This theory says that prejudice arises from real competition between groups for scarce resources.
• Authoritarian Personality Theory: Authoritarian personalities may show heightened prejudice due to their rigidity and intolerance.
• Scapegoat Theory: Prejudice may arise when people blame a certain group for societal problems.
• Cognitive Theories: Cognitive approaches emphasize how people use stereotypes and schemas to simplify their understanding of a complex world, which can perpetuate prejudice.

7. Discuss the causal and maintenance factors of prejudice.

• Causal factors of prejudice include social learning, group identification, and personality needs, while maintenance factors are norms, self-fulfilling prophecies, and cognitive biases.
• Causal factors initiate prejudice while maintenance factors perpetuate the existing prejudices.

8. How do prejudice and discrimination manifest themselves?

• Avoidance: Individuals may avoid contact with members of the prejudiced group.
• Verbal abuse: Use of derogatory language and insults toward members of the out-group.
• Discrimination: Unequal treatment in various areas, such as education, employment, housing, and social interaction.
• Violence: Physical attacks and other acts of aggression against the out-group.
• Genocide: In its extreme form, prejudice can lead to the systematic extermination of a group.

9. What are the personality change techniques that could reduce prejudice and discrimination?

• Therapeutic Interventions: Psychotherapies can be used to help individuals address underlying personality issues and open their minds, for example, play therapy, which is important in early detection and reformation of personality in children.
• Education and Awareness: Increasing awareness about the nature of prejudice and discrimination can lead to attitude change.
• Self-Reflection: Encouraging people to examine their own biases can help reduce prejudice.
• Exposure: Exposing people to positive role models and success stories of minority individuals.

10. What do you understand by the term prejudice? What are the different types of prejudice?

• Prejudice is a negative attitude towards members of a specific social group, based on preconceived notions rather than actual experience. It is an attitude with cognitive, affective, and behavioural components.
• Different types of prejudice include:
  • Racial prejudice
  • Sex prejudice
  • Religious prejudice
  • Political prejudice
  • Communal prejudice

11. What do you understand by the term discrimination? What are the different forms of prejudice manifestation?

• Discrimination is the behavioural expression of prejudice, where individuals or groups are treated unfairly based on their group membership.
• Prejudice manifests through:
  • Avoidance
  • Verbal abuse
  • Discrimination in education, jobs etc.
  • Violence
• Genocide

12. Write an essay on factors of development and maintenance of discrimination and prejudice.

• Development of Prejudice:
  • Social Learning: Children learn prejudiced attitudes from their families, peers, and social environments.
  • Group Identification: A natural inclination to favour the in-group and devalue out-groups can lead to prejudice.
  • Personality Needs: Certain personality traits like intolerance for ambiguity can make people more likely to be prejudiced.
• Maintenance of Prejudice and Discrimination:
  • Social Norms: Prejudice can be maintained when it is part of social norms.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Prejudice can be sustained when negative stereotypes make people act in a manner that confirms the stereotype.
  • Cognitive Biases: People tend to selectively perceive, process and remember information that supports their biases.
  • Motivation: Prejudice is maintained when it fulfils psychological needs like self-esteem or security.
  • Intergroup Contact: Lack of positive contact or negative contact with outgroups can fuel prejudice.

13. Discuss the psychological factors that give rise to prejudice and discrimination.

• Social Identity Theory: Prejudice can stem from the tendency to classify oneself into social groups, leading to in-group favouritism and out-group devaluation.
• Realistic Conflict Theory: Prejudice can emerge from competition for resources between different groups.
• Authoritarian Personality Theory: A personality type characterised by rigidity, conventionality, and intolerance may be more prone to prejudice.
• Scapegoat Theory: Prejudice can serve as a way of blaming an out-group for problems.
• Cognitive Factors: People use stereotypes and schemas to simplify a complex world, which can perpetuate prejudiced ideas.

14. Explain how authoritarian personality and personality needs contribute to the development of prejudice and discrimination?

• Authoritarian Personality: This personality type is characterised by:
  • Rigidity and a strong adherence to traditional values.
  • Intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty.
  • Submissiveness to authority and aggression towards those perceived as weaker.
  • Authoritarian individuals are more likely to develop prejudices due to their need for a structured world and their intolerance of out-groups.
• Personality Needs:
  • Need for Superior Status: Prejudice can arise from a need to feel superior to others, leading to the derogation of out-groups.
  • Need for Security: Prejudice can function to create an 'us vs. them' mentality, in order to enhance a sense of security through rejecting out-groups.
  • Need for Intolerance of ambiguity: Intolerance of ambiguity may result in a need to create rigid, oversimplified categories for understanding a complex world.

15. Delineate the causes for discrimination.

Causes of Discrimination

• Discrimination is the differential treatment of individuals based on their membership in a particular social group, community, or religion.
• It is often the overt or behavioural expression of prejudice, where individuals are denied privileges or rights afforded to others.
• Status and power structures can lead to discrimination, where a dominant group may hold another group in a state of subjugation, leading to beliefs about the subservient group that are aligned with their controlled behaviour.
• Discrimination may occur without the presence of prejudice, for example when business owners deny services to a minority group because of a perceived risk to their business.
• Historical factors contribute to discrimination as well, with patterns of economic conflict and political power distribution between groups leading to discriminatory attitudes.
• Economic factors such as job competition and scarcity, can also lead to discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, for example where one group blames another for taking jobs.

16. What are situational factors that lead to the development of prejudice and discrimination.

Situational Factors Leading to the Development of Prejudice and Discrimination

• Social Learning:
  • Prejudice is acquired through socialisation, as individuals learn beliefs, values, and attitudes from parents, schools, religion, and other agents of socialisation.
  • Child-rearing practices can also influence the development of prejudice.
• Conformity to Norms:
  • When prejudice and discrimination against an outgroup are well-established, they become normative, with in-group members expecting each other to hold those attitudes.
  • Individuals may express prejudice to gain approval from other members of their group.
• Interaction Patterns:
  • Prejudice and discrimination create interaction patterns that maintain the status quo.
  • Increased cohesion within a group, economic dependence of members on each other, and limited interaction across group lines can lead to a cultural gulf, increasing prejudice.
• Economic Factors:
  • Job scarcity and competition can lead to the perception that outgroups are a threat to livelihoods.
• Frustration and Aggression: When individuals face obstacles in achieving their goals, they may displace aggression toward a weaker group, making them a scapegoat.

17. How can social legislation reduce prejudice and discrimination?

How Social Legislation Can Reduce Prejudice and Discrimination

• Social legislation involves government actions, at a local, regional or national level, that prohibit the public expression of prejudice.
• These laws aim to ensure that discrimination is unlawful and liable to punishment.
• Constitutional provisions that prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, sex, and religion, as well as regulations promoting inter-caste marriages, can work to reduce inequality.
• Legislation that provides opportunities for minority groups or groups that have been historically discriminated against (like job reservations), to empower such groups.
• By making prejudice illegal and punishable, social legislation changes the social norms associated with prejudice and discrimination.