Prejudice Definition
Prejudice is defined as an attitude toward people based on their membership in a group (e.g., their racial group, gender, nationality, even the college they attend). Critical to prejudice is an inflexibility in the reaction to the target person whereby the responses to the target are not based on the target’s behaviors or characteristics (good or bad) but instead are based on the target’s membership in a group. Prejudice is most often negative, although it is also possible to be positively prejudiced.
Prejudice involves three key components: an emotional response to members of the group; beliefs about the abilities, behaviors, and characteristics of group members; and behaviors directed at group members. For example, imagine that a person was negatively prejudiced against people from country X. That person may feel angry, anxious, or disgusted when he or she interacts with people from X. In addition, the person may believe that people from country X are stupid, lazy, or untrustworthy. The person may also try to keep people from country X from visiting his or her own country. A person who is prejudiced toward a group may not engage in all three types of responses. For example, it is possible to have prejudiced thoughts and feelings but never engage in prejudiced behavior. Read more about Prejudice.
Prejudice Research Topics:
The ultimate goal of those who study prejudice is to find ways to promote intergroup harmony and encourage people to treat others based on individual characteristics and not group membership. Social psychologists have uncovered some potential routes to prejudice reduction. For example, forming friendships with people from another social group is strongly related to positive attitudes toward that group. Also, getting people to reframe their views of “us” and “them” into “we” can decrease prejudice. Although progress has been made, much remains to be understood about the elimination of prejudice.
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