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Defining Prejudice

an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed
beforehand or without knowledge, thought,
or reason.

unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes,
especially of a hostile nature, regarding a
racial, religious, or national group.

a biased opinion made on emotion or
stereotypes rather than reason.
Most Common Prejudices

Prejudice against a race,
white/black.

Prejudice in religion,
Christian/Muslim.

Age prejudice, young or old.
Prejudice misconceptions

Prejudice is not the
same as stereotyping,
but stereotyping is a
part of being
prejudiced.

Stereotyping is ‘to
give a fixed form’ to
something.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
We often categorize things in our lives
including people this is called
stereotyping
 We may associate Muslims with 9/11
even though we all know that there is a
small group of people responsible and not
the race as a whole.

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

Stereotyping is a component prejudice
Its when you set a rigid belief about the
characteristics of a group.
It is an extension of our predisposition to
categorize.
However harmless it seems it becomes a
problem when categorization is severe and
over generalized. This leads to discrimination.
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
The main emotional root of prejudice is
anger, frustration, and aggression.
 The Scapegoat Theory and the Realistic
Group Conflict Theory explain emotional
prejudice.
 Some personality traits lead to higher
prejudice.

 Desire for high status & belonging
 Ethnocentricity- believing that one’s own
cultural or social group is superior to all
others
The Scapegoat Theory

The Scapegoat theory is a displacement of
anger and aggression upon a weaker party
that is unlikely to fight back. Many people
displace their anger on people outside of
their “group”, usually to make themselves
feel better and release their anger.
 A store owner in an inner city might develop a
prejudice against all African-Americans, thinking
that they all are thieves and criminals because an
African-American person stole merchandise from
him. He may take his anger about the stolen
merchandise and be hostile, and rude to all other
African Americans that come into his store.
The Realistic Group Conflict Theory

The Realistic Group Conflict Theory is the
belief that prejudice, stereotypes, and
general racism are due to actual and
realistic competition between different
groups for resources that are scarce.
 Jobs: Caucasians could be prejudice and say that
they don’t like immigrants, especially Mexican
immigrants because they are taking away jobs
from Americans. Jobs are scarce and in our
economy everyone is having a hard time finding a
job so some people might develop a prejudice
because they are afraid that they will not have a
job when a Mexican immigrant does, so they are
competing over resources.
Roots of Social Prejudice

Unequal status

The Self fulfilling prophecy

Stereotype threat