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What is prejudice?
There are a large number of approaches to the explanation of prejudice.
Biological Theories - like ethnocentrism - viewed as part of our evolutionary past; "red in tooth and claw" - aggression is a natural instinct, competition in genes,...
Universal colour bias - Some suggest there is a universal bias to ward lighter skinned people (Duckett, 1992)
Social Theories
suggest that were learn to distinguish between types of people for political,
economic and social reasons. Modelling others.
Psychological
Theories
Projection
- psychoanlaytically projecting one's failings or negative traits
(Shadow) on to others
Hostility Displacement and Scape-goating is built on the Freudian model of "hydraulics" where aggression and hostility towards others is seen as a deflection of psychological energy (libido) from some frustration in one's life.
often mix elements from these other two, e.g.,
(i.e., Boss (father figure) yells at you, you yell at kids, kids yell at cat.) Someone becomes the victim or scapegoat of the action. The fundamental attribution error may be invovled too.
Belief congruence- biased towards others who hold the same beliefs as us.
Social Identity Theory suggests that we have a need for distinctiveness of social identity. We favour our in-groups to the exclusion of others.
Realistic conflict - conflict over real resources or tangible issues - competition leads to prejudice (E.g. Neighbours->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YAYGi8rQag) - see also Sharif and the Robber's Cave experiments where competition leads to denigration, but super-ordinate goals resolve conflict.
Cognitive - Use stereotypes as categories to organize the world, prejudice is the use of 'loose categories' that don't work very well. Perhaps need to teach people more accurate information so they can know the 'others' better.
-Need to change attitudes and then
behaviour.
(cognitive dissonance) try to keep our actions and thoughts in line, otherwise
it is more work to balance them.
Social Cognition and Attribution theory
What is Discrimination?
Targets of prejudice anyone
for any reason
Racism fact Sheet - what it is and how to combat it (Bhatt et al., 2020)
Education, information, sharing and contact (these are part of the multicultural policy and multicultural ideology). Teach people to become active witnesses (Ishiyama)
Identity
theory of prejudice -
Through identifying with others
you will experience them as yourself, you will no longer be prejudiced
against them as others. Vedanta, Buddhism, Christianity
-love thy enemy, Gandhi quoted Christ
on this point in his non-violent stand against discrimination.
Tajfel
- Social Identity Theory -
Positive feelings of value
and emotional significance arise through group membership.
-Positive valuation in comparison with other groups is observed in Minimal Group Studies. Preference for paintings, give more money to "fictitious in-group'.
The problem of the Commons - social traps
Contact hypothesis suggests that having contact with people from other groups one will become less prejudiced and more accepting and tolerant of differences that were once perceived as incommensurate.
Tajfel (1978) indicates that simple categorization of people into groups will lead to an exaggeration of the differences between the groups and a minimization of the differences within the groups.
This effect of "minimal groups" and the social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978) may thus be combined with the contact hypothesis which leads to a complicated situation for understanding the effects of contact.
Amir (1986) provides reviews on the contact hypothesis, indicating that contact may or may not lead to a reduction in prejudiced attitudes, depending upon a number of variables.
Those variables pertinent in
developing positive inter-relations between groups:
(1) The initial
intergroup attitudes are not extremely negative;
(2) Contact of an intimate
rather than casual nature which allows the interacting members to really
get to know each other beyond the superficial level;
(3) An 'authority' and/or
social climate slanted in favour of and promoting
the pursuit of common goals;
(4) Equal-status
contact between the members of the interacting groups. (p. 74)
It is not simply contact that the multicultural policy should be after, but a special kind of contact, as described above. APTN-Contact Experiment
Peacemaking: Cooperation and finding superordinate goals (Sherif, 1966). The groups (survivors) need to cooperate to do better. Communication made simple and clear. Conciliation or winning over the favour of others is important for coming together on challenging issues.
Ethnicity
and Identity
Research on the meaning of being Canadian and Ethnic is as follows:
Tonks (1998): Study on the top categories / responses to:
Built around the need for
a distinctive identity, and the need to maintain a link to one's history,
past, traditions, ...cultures one enters into
group relations and influences....
