Prejudice and Discrimination - Essay Example

Prejudice is an incorrect or unjustified treatment towards individuals mainly solely based on which social group the individuals belong to (Whitley & Kite, 2010). For example, it is common for particular people to hold certain prejudicial remarks or views towards a particular gender i.e. sexism or towards a particular race i.e. racism. Others term it as a prejudgment in which an individual perceives an opinion before getting fully aware of the relevant and important facts in a case (Holloway, 2009). There have been various studies conducted to try and understand why prejudice exists in society and with this try and suggest ways through which it could be tackled or dealt with. Many of the studies have been based on psychological research and the first psychologically based research on prejudice was conducted in the year 1920 (Yang, 2000). This research was aimed at trying to identify instances of white supremacy and to what extent it promoted prejudicial discrimination giving facts that the whites felt mentally superior, hence, a majority of psychologists held the notion that prejudice was a natural response to the races that were considered inferior (Whitley & Kite, 2010). However, this perspective begun to change and in the contemporary explanations psychologists view prejudice as based on favoritism towards one’s own group and not merely because individuals have negative feelings for out-groups. According to psychologist Brewer Marilyn, prejudice may develop not solely because a particular out group is hated, but because there exists because there is intense positive feelings i.e. trust, sympathy, or admiration for in groups (Whitley & Kite, 2010). This paper shall critically asses the two cases provided in this paper’s question, mapping out reasons as to why the prejudice and discrimination exists in each of the case and by drawing knowledge from the methods of reducing prejudice and discrimination based on psychological research provide three methods of reducing prejudice and tackling discrimination in each case. Case Study 1 In this first case, the youth center is located in an environment that has a lot of social problems. These social problems include; youth unemployment and deprivation, overcrowding and a very high proportion of anti-social behavior (Whitley & Kite, 2010). With youth unemployment, a majority of the youth from both the white and the black races stay dormant with little to do and this encourages the formation of hangout groups which in the long run develop to gangs each having its own perceptions about the other gang (Holloway, 2009). From the case it has been stated that there are two major groups or gangs, that that comprises of young whites of age 15/17 and that comprising of young blacks of similar age. Both groups consist of unemployed youth who hang out together and mostly in the youth center (Holloway, 2009). Due to overcrowding another social problem of overcrowding crops up, and with overcrowding, the two groups begin to compete for the limited resources available, for example, the youth center and this competition escalates to instances of violence or use of force. Hence, for the members of the groups to access the limited resources they prefer to associate themselves with either group and with this association mob psychology takes effect (Nelson, 2001). Elements of mob psychology have been discussed in the out-group homogeneity effect that holds that members of an out-group are more homogeneous than members of an in-group and hence people belonging to one group do so because they share more in common than they do with members of another group and this greatly influences their line of thought. With this they will tend to have the same violent remarks about the other group and so will the other group do the same as they are competing for scarce or limited resources which include jobs, recreational facilities such as the youth center and many more as stated by the realistic conflict theory (Whitley & Kite, 2010). According to the theory, increasing competition for limited resources leads to an increase in prejudice as well as discrimination (Whitley & Kite, 2010). Solutions 1. Inter group Contact Approach This approach is prominently based on social psychology. It insists that in order to reduce prejudice, optimal conditions of prejudice between those that hold the prejudice beliefs and those targeted by the prejudice beliefs should be created (Nelson, 2001). This can be achieved by creating equal status to both groups in the given context, for example, in the above case the society would do well by not highly viewing or regarding a particular race as more superior than the other. 2. Social identity approaches According to this approach, people are more inclined to favor their in-group instead of the out-group. This approach attempts to reduce prejudice by making attempts to create a group based identity for example race less effective means of identification by suggesting other forms of group identification (Chin, 2004). Some of the attempts used in this approach include the individuation technique that stresses that people should insist on the personal characteristics of an individual rather than generalizing and re categorization, where individuals belonging to a particular group are made to understand the fact that the groups in which they belong to are part of larger groups, for example, in fighting racism people have been made to believe that they belong to the humanity instead of the different races. 3. Disclosure approach With this approach, a member belonging to a particular group would reveal information about themselves and this works by signaling vulnerability, hence, increasing the degree of trust and liking and this ion the long run reduces prejudice. Case Study 2 In this second case, as a housing officer, you would have to identify the main rift exists between which two major groups. This is because the houses are located in a location that has a lot of ethnic groups. However, as suggested by the paper question the main rift exists between two major ethnic groups which are the Somalis and the African Caribbean’s (McLauchlan, 2003). The issue of disagreements is based on the housing services given to either group and this has in turn resulted to instances of violence and cases of serious anti-social behavior. There is also great mistrust with the police and a majority of the people believes that they would not properly address the issue. A majority of the populations in the area are not born citizens, and a greater proportion of the disputing groups are greatly comprised of immigrants. With high rates of immigration in North London, there arises high competition for resources leading to poor sanitation, poor housing as well as increasing the competition for housing services (McLauchlan, 2003). Borrowing from the psychological findings on linguistic discrimination where groups hold particular prejudicial beliefs about particular members of a group due to their native language. The Somali speaking group and the Afro Caribbean’s are of two completely different language groups all in a foreign land that is Britain (North London). Hence, the two groups are competing for the scarce resources that are available in this area and the fact there exist great miss trust with the police can be explained by the fact the two groups belong to different language groups and the police belong to another separate language group. Borrowing from psychological researches, the above case is seen to have both realistic threats as well as symbolic threats as major causes of the prejudice and discrimination between the two groups (Marsh, Mendoza-Denton & Smith, 2010). With realistic threats, individuals of a particular group discriminate against or develop particular prejudicial beliefs of other groups because they feel that their resources are being threatened, for example, natural resources or source of income, however in this case it’s the housing services.With symbolic threats, members of one particular group develop prejudice and discrimination against members of another group because they feel that their cultural norms and believes will be threatened by the other group which may prompt violence in an area where they live together like in this case. Solutions 1. Interdependence approach This approach exploits the notion that the interdependence between two groups can greatly reduce prejudice and discrimination. It was championed by psychologist Duetsch’s Mark and according to its theory, when a common issue arises among two groups like in this second case, the two groups realize that that they can solve the issue by pooling resources together and this means that they will be more likely to engage in cooperative behavior which results to friendliness and slowly eliminates discrimination and prejudice. 2. Affective approach This approach involves a combination of various personal techniques, for example, empathy and perspective taking. With perspective taking, taking the perspectives of individuals or groups of people that are prejudiced against has greatly helped fight prejudices (Jones, 2001). This is mainly because it involves feelings of affinity and similarity, this would greatly work in this case as the two groups would gain the feelings of similarity, hence, reduce the prejudice that exists. With empathy, empathy towards stigmatized individuals is another important feeling based strategy, where individuals feel empathy for the groups prejudiced and this reduces prejudice (Sears, Sidanius and Bobo, 1999). 3. Integrated Approach This is an approach that combines all intergroup techniques and individual components to fighting and solving prejudices. It includes intergroup contact, empathy as well as perspective taking. It is important to note that this approach involves some form of entertainment. This is usually referred to as the entertainment based interventions and they are usually applied after the cooperative learning interventions. References Chin, J. L. (2004). The psychology of prejudice and discrimination: 4. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Praeger Publ. Holloway, P. A. (2009). Coping with prejudice: 1 Peter in social-psychological perspective. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Jones, M. (2001). Social psychology of prejudice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Marsh, J., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Smith, J. A. (2010). Are we born racist?: New insights from neuroscience and positive psychology. Boston: Beacon Press. McLauchlan, A. (2003). Prejudice and discrimination in Japan--the Buraku issue. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Nelson, T. D. (2001). The psychology of prejudice. Boston, Ma: Allyn & Bacon Sears, D. O., Sidanius, J., & Bobo, L. (1999). Racialized politics: The debate about racism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Whitley, B. E., & Kite, M. E. (2010). The psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Yang, P. Q. (2000). Ethnic studies: Issues and approaches. Albany: State University of New York Press. Read More