Prejudice and discrimination (Research Paper Sample)

Prejudice and discrimination
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Table of contents
TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Name PAGEREF _Toc366868683 \h 1
Institution PAGEREF _Toc366868684 \h 1
Date PAGEREF _Toc366868685 \h 1
Abstract PAGEREF _Toc366868686 \h 2
1.0 Introduction PAGEREF _Toc366868687 \h 3
1.1 Defining Prejudice in the Society PAGEREF _Toc366868688 \h 4
1.2 Defining discrimination in the society PAGEREF _Toc366868691 \h 6
1.3 Prejudice and Indiscrimination in the Society PAGEREF _Toc366868695 \h 7
1.3.1 Gender discrimination PAGEREF _Toc366868697 \h 7
1.3.2 Racial discrimination PAGEREF _Toc366868699 \h 8
1.3.3 Tribunal discrimination PAGEREF _Toc366868701 \h 9
1.4 Current Research Findings on the Prejudice and Discrimination in the Societies PAGEREF _Toc366868703 \h 9
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW PAGEREF _Toc366868708 \h 12
2.1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc366868709 \h 12
2.2 Existing Theoretical Explanations of Prejudice and Discrimination PAGEREF _Toc366868711 \h 12
2.2.1 Social identity theory PAGEREF _Toc366868713 \h 12
2.2.2 The social creativity PAGEREF _Toc366868718 \h 14
2.3 Social comparison theory PAGEREF _Toc366868725 \h 17
2.4 Contributions of Prejudice and Discrimination to Psychological Profession PAGEREF _Toc366868730 \h 19
2.4.1 Counter-Stereotypical ideas and Prejudice/discrimination Reduction PAGEREF _Toc366868732 \h 19
2.4.2 Models and psychological profession PAGEREF _Toc366868733 \h 20
2.5 Conclusions PAGEREF _Toc366868737 \h 22
References PAGEREF _Toc366868740 \h 23
Abstract
This study focuses on the issue of prejudice and discrimination which is one of the topics within the ambits of social psychology. The study takes a contributory stance to the pool of research and theoretical literature in the field of social psychology. The topic of prejudice and discrimination is one of the common problems that affect the members of the society. The paper therefore brings the issue into perspective by highlighting and revealing the concepts of the topic understudy. The first section lays out an empirical and a conceptual foundation for other sections of the paper. Importantly, the section defines and differentiates the major concepts of stereotype, discrimination and prejudice, explaining the common forms of prejudice and discrimination in the contemporary societies. Theoretical review of the existing research and findings on the aforementioned phenomena follows. The second section of the paper gives a wider view of literature on the issue under study by giving critical analysis of the socio psychological theories. It further addresses how the field has progressed and essentially on how it has shaped the profession of psychology. The last section is the conclusion with gives the synopsis of the paper..
Key words: prejudice, discrimination, stereotype.
1.0 Introduction
Discrimination and prejudice based on gender and ethnicity are some of the social issues affecting the daily lives of individuals in the entire globe. They affect the way people perceive themselves and others giving them different behaviours and opportunities. Prejudice can be explained as an intergroup event which inhibits relations between various social groups. Intergroup prejudice and relations will have various effects when the groups are in the same level of economic and social status or when belong to various levels in a social ladder. This is attributed to the fact that social ladder makes prejudice and discrimination of correlated groups possible. Discrimination and prejudice have different effects in various cultures however, psychologically; they have the same fundamental mechanism and transform the peoples’ daily reality.
Discrimination and prejudice can affect individuals’ opportunities, self worth, social resources and motivation as well as their interaction with the broader society. In addition, perception of inequality and equality are themselves facilitator of prejudice and discrimination. Therefore, developing, promoting as well as sustaining human rights and equality depends on figuring out how individuals understand and apply the concepts of prejudice and discrimination in their daily lives. As revealed in the previous studies, prejudice and discrimination can exist in different dimensions depending on the element used to propagate identification. Discrimination particularly is based on the difference between identities. These social identities in the society provide suitable grounds for discrimination.
Structural inequalities suffuse society and result into differences in ethnicity, socio economic, and social class categorization. To some degree, direct provision of services and legislation can solve such indifferences. However, these factors on their own cannot solve the implanted social attitude which causes indiscrimination. Besides, structural inventions normally apply to a certain categories or groups but potentially assume other forms of indifferences. In fact new social groupings constantly come up; for instance, the media and politicians frequently identify new suspected threats from immigrants of certain types, certain practices acquired by religions, threats of social institutions like marriage and many more. Therefore, the targets of discrimination and prejudice may change rapidly compared to the legislation response.
Therefore, to address discrimination and prejudice, it is imperative to give a wider evaluation of methods which may come up as general social procedures. This paper explains the framework instituted largely by a social psychological viewpoint which identifies the types of discrimination and prejudice prevalent in the contemporary societies. This framework identifies the factors which inhibit and are inhibited by the stereotypes, attitudes, beliefs and emotions of individuals. The framework can be utilized to synthesize a given intergroup categorization, hence facilitating systematic comprehension various ways in which courses of actions and interventions will hinder those groups. The wider assessment also points out how the discrimination and prejudice have shaped the profession of psychology.
1.1 Defining Prejudice in the Society
Within psychology, there have been many trials to define prejudice. Markus and Wurf (2006) noted that prejudice cannot forever be defined as unjustified or irrational hence, it is imperative to describe it as a negative assessment of an individual or a social class which is extensively based on a person’s group membership. However, this leaves people with a slight drift in forms of policy since it ignores prejudice which ignores negative assessment. Consequently, the approach adopted in this paper is to describe prejudice as a bias which devalues individuals due to their apparent membership of a social class. This description enables prejudice to emerge from biases in various ways. However, it is not perceived that every bias is consequential or particularly harmful. Some are relatively favorable like the belief Chinese individuals are good at Mathematics compared to Europeans. This prejudice will be favorable towards people of china in Britain.
As noted by Markus and Wurf (2006) prejudice arises when biases are generally consequential and harmful since they minimize the value or standing attached to an individual through their class membership. This can happen when altitudes, emotions and stereotypes towards the class are pointed out on a member of the class. Therefore, it is prudent to differentiate understanding of group variation from prejudice and bias. Some social classes are noticeably equal; they poorly educated, have limited opportunity, are poor and evidently have low job positions, engage in criminal injustices and worse health conditions. Some classes posses more powers than others within the community.
As posited by Rogers and Frantz (2010) individuals’ knowledge is generally wrong or incomplete and may inappropriately oversimplify their knowledge causing prejudice and bias. For instance, it is wrong and clearly prejudiced to believe that all Muslims in the United Kingdom have a terrorist threat. It is correct to believe that all mothers are women but wrong to believe that every women is a mother. A research by Hyman and Paul (2011) revealed that policies or actions aimed at assisting particular group of individuals who are believed to be needy or independent involve may well lead to disadvantages to other group of individuals who are believed to be independent. These believe are prejudiced, and for certain group of people, it may be just harmful like direct hostility. Therefore, from a strategy perspective, a vital task is to recognize which prejudices are harmful and the ones which are consequential and who to target.
1.2 Defining discrimination in the society
While prejudice refers to an attitude, discrimination deals with explicit situational behaviour. According to Hyman and Paul (2011) social discrimination happens when an individual gets a harsher or better treatment compared to others due to his or her social class membership. For instance, a landlord may decide to assume the applications from individuals of a particular ethnic community. Social psychologists have generally studied discriminatory behaviour in relation to researches of its psychological foundation such as stereotypes (Rogers & Frantz, 2010). This study has frequently been done in social environment in which discriminatory behaviour occur, such as the justice system (Hyman & Paul, 2011).
As asserted by Hyman and Paul (2011) discrimination occurs in various ways depending on its root cause. It can be individual, aggregate and institutional. Discrimination of social classes can be societal and institutional when the living standards of particular individuals are surrounded by certain laws which restrict their huma...