Of Prejudice and Stereotypes in Society

Prejudice and stereotypes can be recognized as tied into one another. Sometimes it looks like stereotypes create prejudice. It has been said that stereotypes are a natural way for humans to categorize each other into groups, and one side effect is prejudice, Others say that stereotypes are the result of prejudice, since we need an excuse and a way for our prejudices to make sense. Both of these views seem to say that prejudices and stereotypes are inevitable, since the human mind works in ways that require categories and organization.

Since our brains are wired that way, there is no way to escape this vicious circle of categories and disliking some of those categories But there is another aspect of these theories: some people may be aware of these stereotypes, but don’t want to be prejudiced toward those people. So they have different beliefs and views, and will resist being prejudiced Stereotypes and personal beliefs are not the same thing and can clash.

Often one’s beliefs are not the same as their actions or knowledge Knowledge that has been reinforced many times can become so permanent that even when new information comes in and changes one’s beliefs; their actions can sometimes contradict the way one would want to behave.

Stereotypes can be etched into someone’s brain since they were children, but when they decide that they do not agree with behaving that way, their beliefs change. That is the battle between controlled and automatic processing. Automatic processing can result in acting or feeling nervous around a Black guy, while controlled processing can be thinking “hey, this person is just as human as anyone else, and has not done anything that should make me wary of him.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified

Proficient in: Belief

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

” Experiments have shown that, as much as one would like to have no prejudices towards anyone, and will gladly fight against any droughts or behaviors that are; sometimes it is hard to do that. Both high and low prejudice prone people react to a stereotype activation. It is an automatic processing phenomenon, and such actions are hard to control or get rid of.

Stereotypes and categorization have been considered a normal part of human cognitive processes, and are considered “adaptive and functional processes.” But some stereotypes are negative, and therefore can result in prejudiced thoughts Many people have believed that stereotypes are automatically triggered when one sees a member of a group of people. These stereotypes are supposedly a bunch of traits and characteristics linked together, and those links make up a social group such as gender, age, weight, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. “Automatic stereotype activation” is considered with a stereotypical characteristic or action as well as with a stereotypical response. But in order to have these stereotypes and the actions of the people involved with them, there has to be priming. Stereotype priming is where the stereotype is obtainable in the memory, and therefore can be primed, and therefore can be retrieved for a short amount of time. Category priming is effected by automatic stereotype activation only when the category is primed When any stereotypical information is linked strongly with a group, those associations are noticed quite quickly, whether they are positive or negative.

This idea, where stereotypical information is primed, reinforced multiple times, and then linking strongly with a group, is the key to showing that it is possible to get rid of prejudice. If more people who are less prejudiced influence people to take in their opinions and actions by priming positive stereotypes, prejudice could die away. People wouldn’t have access to negative stereotypes, so they wouldn’t be able to be primed to it, and those links would cease to exist. Positive stereotypes, thoughts and actions that are primed, reinforced multiple times and then always linked to a group would result in a more caring world. Either that, or the possibility of low prejudiced people having weaker priming pathways and still influencing people to act the way they are would result in less stereotypical behaviors and thoughts altogether, which might not be that bad of an alternative. Both articles mention how stereotypes and prejudices are hard to change and can influence our actions in various ways, such as hindering our communications with others, They also mention how stereotypes and prejudice are the side effects of our thought processes, as mentioned in the book on page 332.

Prejudice is a negative judgment of a social group, and a stereotype is a belief about a group that is sometimes inaccurate and often resistant to new information, as all three sources suggest, I agree with the fact that both stereotypes and prejudice are the byproducts of our cognitive reasoning. We like to organize everything into groups as much as we can, to better simplify our lives. But then sometimes we overgeneralize, and then some of those generalizations become negative, Prejudice is the result of stubbornness, refusing to get rid of those generalizations even in the face of truth. But in the second article it shows that those negative thoughts can be fought and pushed away from our society, I want that to happen. And in fact, I believe it already is starting to. More and more people are fighting the negative stereotypes, refusing to become prejudiced, and trying to look at everyone in a more positive light. So maybe soon all of this prejudice injustice will be gone, as more and more people ignore the negative inaccuracies, influence others to do so, and look at the individual to see the truth.