Question

“Like minds think alike” is an adage describing how people with similar values and beliefs may respond in a similar fashion in each circumstance. In a positive way, individuals with similar backgrounds and interests tend to be attracted to each other more than individuals with dissimilar backgrounds and interests. However, there is also a negative side to this. There are several social sources of prejudice such as social dominance orientation, ethnocentric behavior, and authoritarian personalities.

Describe the basis behind prejudice and discrimination. Explain ways in which these issues can be reduced? Explain how the common reasons for forming relationships can sometimes become negative aspects of prejudice and discrimination.

Describe each of the social sources of prejudice thinking. Support your answer with relevant examples. Explain which of the three sources you consider to be the most effective in breeding prejudices.

Answer 1

Prejudice is a prejudgment or assumption made about something/someone without the adequate knowledge to do so with guaranteed accuracy, can negatively impact emotional well-being and one's sense of self and the discrimination is the action taken for the result of prejudice. Thus there are many bases of these attitudes.

• Socialization- children are not born with prejudice and discriination. They must learn them from their family, peers, media,and society around them. For example,white north americans have historically tended to be more prejudiced against those who originally came from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
• The Media- The media represent another potential source of social learning.Media coverage of any given group is likely to reflect the broader society's current prejudice about the groups.For example, New Yorker showed cartoons as blacks are cleaning ladies,or sanitation workers.

Strategies for Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination :

• Make a cross-race friend

• by changing social norms

• Through Intergroup Contact

• Social recategorization -us & them

• Cognitive interventions - weakening stereotypes

• Moving Others Closer to Us; recategorization