Social Determinants of behaviour - Essay Example

Because social sanctions have been put into place over the past several decades, negative behavior involving prejudice has been. These sanctions have resulted in many individuals who would otherwise display prejudice behavior to change their stance or to at least keep their opinions to themselves and not act out in public. However, quite a bit of prejudice behavior still appears in society despite these social sanctions being put into place. There is a social psychological reason for this prejudice behavior continuing in society today. Among the things contributing to this fact are social cognitive processes such as stereotypes and categorization, as well as psychological theories, concepts, and research. This paper focuses on the psychological approach to explaining the reasoning behind prejudiced behavior still occurring in society today despite social sanctions that have been put in place against it. Negative behavior involving prejudice has been punished over the past several decades due to social sanctions being put into place. These sanctions have resulted in many individuals who would otherwise display prejudice behavior to change their stance or to at least keep their opinions to themselves and not act out in public. However, quite a bit of prejudice behavior still appears in society despite these social sanctions being put into place. There is a social psychological reason for this prejudice behavior continuing in society today. Among the things contributing to this fact are social cognitive processes such as stereotypes and categorization, as well as psychological theories, concepts, and research. According to Kanlouh, Koh, and Mil (2008, pg. 1), "In culturally diverse and immigrant receiving societies, immigrant youth can be subject to prejudice and discrimination. Such experiences can impact on immigrant youth's cultural identity and influence their psychosocial outcomes. Four main themes emerged on participants' experiences of prejudice and discrimination: (a) societal factors influencing prejudice; (b) personal experiences of discrimination; (c) fear of disclosure and silenced cultural identity; and (d) resiliency and strength of cultural identity." Policies and practices that are inclusive in nature need to be put into place in order to counteract the disintegration of youth. The problem is not limited to just general culture. A big problem occurs in school systems throughout the world as well. According to Valeo (2009, pg. 1), "Ontario's current education system is struggling with the task of fully including children with disabilities in the regular classrooms of their neighbourhood school. While many educators understand that it is wrong to deny admission to publicly funded schools because the child may be Black or female, they nonetheless feel that segregation of students with disabilities is warranted and not discriminatory. An examination of their experiences using a narrative format seems to suggest that the institution of education has never welcomed difference in any form and at issue is not whether education can ever welcome students with disabilities, but whether it was created to be anything but an exclusive enterprise." Some people believe that prejudice occurs naturally, as in people are born with it, and that it does not develop as a result of society. Others disagree. They claim that it occurs because of how a person is raised, the situations that occur around him or her, or the like. In arguing the latter point of view, prejudice may occur as a result of the establishment of institutions, the status of a particular individual compared with those around him or her, a person's role in society, laws, belief systems, the overall distribution of the population, social currents, the experiences of groups, emotions, and urbanization (Valeo, 2009). There are both formal and informal social sanctions. An example of formal sanctions includes the law of the land. Examples of informal sanctions include shame, exclusion, and social control. In approaching this topic from the psychological point of view, it is important to remember that psychology is the science of the individual (Valeo, 2009). One reason why prejudice continues to occur despite the placement of social sanctions in society is the lack of personal guilt among some people. Some individuals believe in it so strongly and express their opinions so openly that they do not feel shame for their actions. Personal guilt is internalized; therefore, it is an example of a psychological viewpoint on this subject (Valeo, 2009). Another reason why prejudice continues in spite of social sanctions being put into place is the concept of social dilemmas. It has been shown through research that defects in sanctioning actually enhance cooperation. This may have resulted from the restriction of study participants to only two behaviors, which were defection and cooperation (Valeo, 2009). Social trilemmas have also been studied as a potential cause for prejudice still occurring in society despite the placement of social sanctions. In the case of a social trilemma, an additional factor to defection and cooperation is introduced as a possible alternative. In the study of trilemmas, it has been found that sanctions fail because some individuals choose the alternative option. Only in social dilemmas have sanctions increased cooperation and collective interests. Sanctions can fail when individuals assume other members of a group are not going to cooperate. When this occurs, sanctions can be found to be counterproductive in most cases, because the overall collective interests of the group are decreased. As a result, it has been concluded that allowing people to consider alternative options to defect when it comes to sanctioning can reveal the weaknesses of that sanction and show its detrimental effects on society, along with all other related sanctions (Valeo, 2009). According to Flanagan, et.al. (2009, pg. 1), "The role of prejudice and ethnic awareness in the civic commitments and beliefs about the American social contract of 1,096 (53% female) adolescents (11-18 year olds, Mean = 15) from African-, Arab-, Latino-, and European-American backgrounds were compared. Ethnic awareness was higher among minority youth and discrimination more often reported by African- and Arab-Americans. Parental admonitions against discrimination were heard by all but African Americans, Latinos and those who reported prejudice heard that it could pose a barrier. Adolescents' beliefs that America is an equal opportunity society were negatively associated with experiences of discrimination and African-Americans were least likely to believe that the government was responsive to the average person. With respect to civic goals, all youth endorsed patriotism but ethnic minorities and ethnically aware youth were more committed to advocating for their ethnic group and European-Americans were less committed than were African Americans to improving race relations." Stereotyping is one source of prejudice. Stereotyping occurs when an individual generalizes the typical characteristics of a particular group. In other words, an individual belongs to a certain group, so he or she must behave or be a certain way or have certain characteristics. Prejudice can be positive or negative. It occurs when a person has a particular attitude towards an individual solely because he or she belongs to a certain group. Discrimination occurs when an individual actually takes action for or against the objects for which he or she holds prejudice. Stereotypes can be measured in several different ways. First of all, they can be measured by the straightforward labeling of characteristics to certain groups. Secondly, they can be measured by identifying the salient characteristics or what stands out most about a particular group (Utsey, Ponterotto, and Porter, 2008). Stereotypes come from cognitive sources such as social categorisation. People may not have much exposure to the outgroup, so they make generalisations about them. In this case, the stereotyping individual does not have the chance to study his or her own group's idiosyncracies. Americans also like to individualize themselves, so it could be explained through the concept of it being a cultural phenomenon (Utsey, Ponterotto, and Porter, 2008). Stereotypes have certain impacts. They result in the contrast effect, which means that they distort our overall perceptions. Once a stereotype occurs in the mind of an individual, it is difficult for that person to stop stereotyping. They affect our overall attention to information in that this information is more likely to be attended to. They also affect social judgments, how much we like a person, a person's mood, expectations, and lead us to self-fulfilling prophecies (Wright and Tolan, 2009). When stereotypes occur, the occurrence of distinctive behaviors and groups are overestimated jointly. Negative behaviors and minorities are distinctive. We incorrectly assume that these go hand-in-hand (Wright and Tolan, 2009). Stereotypes are most likely fueled by prejudice, but the average person is not willing to admit this. This is true whether the stereotype is negative or positive. People, on average, will also not admit to prejudice or discrimination. Some sources of prejudice are societal or institutional in nature. These include laws, schools, the media, and just-world ideas. Just-world ideas include beliefs such as "bad things happen to bad people," "good things happen to good people," and "people get what they deserve." People are also guilty of giving poor rationalisations and excuses for their own shortcomings (Cristol and Gimbert, 2008). Information that is prejudiced in nature tends to receive more attention, be rehearsed more often, and is more likely to be remembered than other types of information or with information that is inconsistent with prejudiced information. According to Cristol and Gimbert (2008, pg. 1), "Prejudice involves negative feelings when they are in the presence of,or even think about, members of the group. Prejudice often involves stereotypes, suggesting that all members of a group behave in certain ways and have certain characteristics." Prejudice can come from direct intergroup conflict, social learning, social categorisation, cognitive sources, or direct intergroup conflict. This information is based on conflict theory. The idea is that competition between different groups of individuals can ultimately lead to hostility occurring between them. Even those threats that are perceived instead of real can lead to prejudice. Because social sanctions have been put into place over the past several decades, negative behavior involving prejudice has been. These sanctions have resulted in many individuals who would otherwise display prejudice behavior to change their stance or to at least keep their opinions to themselves and not act out in public. However, quite a bit of prejudice behavior still appears in society despite these social sanctions being put into place. Works Cited Khanlou, N.; J.G. Koh; and C. Mill. (2008). Cultural identity and experiences of prejudice and discrimination of Afghan and Iranian immigrant youth. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. 6(4): 494-513. Valeo, A. (2009). Education's enduring prejudices: Disability at the door. Learning Inquiry. 3(2): 97-109. Flanagan, C.A.; A.K. Syvertsen; S. Gill; et.al. (2009). Ethnic awareness, prejudice, and civic commitments in four ethnic groups of American adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 38(4): 500-518. Utsey, S.O.; J.G. Ponterotto; and J.S. Porter. (2008). Prejudice and racism, year 2008-Still going strong: Research on reducing prejudice with recommended methodological advances. Journal of Counseling and Development. 86(3): 339-347. Wright, A.N. and J. Tolan. (2009). Prejudice reduction through shared adventure: A qualitative outcome assessment of a multicultural education class. Journal of Experiential Education. 32(2): 137-154. Cristol, D. and B. Gimbert. (2008). Racial perceptions of young children: A review of literature post-1999. Early Childhood Education Journal. 36(2): 201-207. Read More