Martin Luther king said, “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Prejudice and stereotyping go hand in hand in generating and sustaining societal discrimination. Stereotypes are mainly based on prejudice and stereotyping is as a result of prejudice. When prejudice is most times a bad attitude towards members of a group, stereotype is an assumption about a group caused by past experiences or beliefs. According to Bar-Tal et al (2013), the study of stereotyping and prejudice is aimed at understanding human nature, how they participate in a group and how they interact with other groups. It aims at enlightening on these aspects of social psychology. Even though stereotypes and prejudice can be rectified by diversity teachings, in most cases people’s attitudes, beliefs and behavior are developed by things they are not aware of and cannot quite understand.
Attitudes and Behaviors of and Prejudice and Stereotyping
Issues of race and ethnicity have been portrayed majorly by various theories. The first theory is functionalism which stresses that racial and ethnic discriminations served a crucial role thus, existing for a very long time. The system is corrupt since discrimination cannot contribute positively to the society. The second theory is conflict theory. The theory is mostly applied to discriminations on the line of gender, social class, education, race and ethnicity. The third theory is Interactionism which emphasizes that race and ethnicity act as a strong symbol for social identity. It emphasizes that it is not race itself that cause racism but the symbol of race. The fourth theory is the theory of culture of prejudice. It emphasizes that prejudice is caused by culture and cultural activities. It shows that people are judged by the stereotypes associated with their culture. The theory of culture of prejudice incorporates people’s way of life. This involves the way they behave, their long term held beliefs and their attitudes. People are judged by the way they live. Tis study will majorly focus on the impacts of this theory to the society.
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The Portrayal of Ethnic, Cultural, or Social Groups by the Media and Stereotypes
Since time immemorial media has been on the front line in perpetrating ethnic and cultural stereotypes that have had harmful effects. This is because media reaches a wide audience and offer a means through which communities learn about each other. According to Allen & Bruce (2017, 224), ethnic minority groups are usually sidelined and ignored by different mediums. This is because when they are talked about by the media, they are often portrayed in narrowly stereotyped roles. They are presented negatively as being problematic. However, Cultural marginal media which is produced by and for marginalized groups usually present additional constructive representations. Mass media contributes in influencing collective structures and intergroup assertiveness. It alters the image audience get of different groups by stereotyping the groups. Such presentations by the media can lower ethnic minority individual’s self- esteem and cause public hostility towards ethnic groups .Stereotypes spread by media can have a long lasting impact. For example the media has influenced males’ limit of their masculine guise, being aggressive and not showing emotions and feelings. Another example is how violence is perpetuated amongst teenagers through the games they play online, messages in adverts on television and negative lyrics and behavior of popular singers they follow.
Membership in a Group and Social Judgment
Globally, people belong and are defined to a large extent by the social groups they belong to. Mostly involvement in one cultural group indicates that one cannot belong to another cultural group. For example a person is either male or female, old or young and not both. Social groups usually determines how a person views themselves and influences people’s social identity. Group memberships affect psychological processes in particular situations. Social group memberships has seen people change working teams, places of residence and their choice of political parties (Roth et al., 2018, 479). People are mostly categorized and judged according to the social groups they belong to. Thus, people are responded to more as belonging to a certain social group than as a person. People are judged through gender, age, political affiliations, race, and economic status among other aspects. Society also categorizes people along these aspects that in most cases they don’t have control over. Individuals have been denied access to opportunities owing to the social groups they belong to. For instance a female can be denied a leadership position owing to the fact that she is a woman and not a man in a society where women are believed to be the weaker sex.
Subtle Stereotyping in Everyday Language and Cognitive Dissonance
Even though in some cases stereotyping and prejudice can be adapted, efforts should be made to try and change some stereotypes. However, stereotypes can be very resistant to change as individuals tend to explain away the stereotypes so as to retain them (Rudman & Ashmore, 2015, 856). Cognitive dissonance is the situation whereby attitudes, beliefs and behaviors don’t agree. For example, people take fatty foods (behavior) knowing that cholesterol causes obesity (cognition). Dissonance can be reduced by changing behavior where the discordant element is behavior. However it is difficult for individuals to change deeply developed behavioral responses (Roth et al., 2018, 479). People also convince themselves that it is better a short life of pleasure than a long life devoid of little pleasures that are derived from bad habits. Thus, diminishing the significance of the dissonant cognition. Everyday people find stereotypes humorous and even joke about them. This hinders people from noticing how harmful the stereotypes are to people.
Ethical Considerations for Researchers
When conducting research on the topics of prejudice and stereotype, researchers should be highly sensitive of how such research could affect people of various groups. Research on prejudice brings about development of collective discrimination. Researchers need to be sensitive of how their work is presented to avoid negative feelings towards their subject of the research. Culture is a subject very dear to its subjects, and it is only wise that study of such a culture is presented with utmost caution. Primary ethical considerations for such researchers include confidentiality, debriefing participants concerning the research, non-maleficence and beneficence.
Likely Consequences of Prejudice and Stereotyping
Holding on to prejudices and stereotypes influences how people evaluate themselves and others. Prejudice degrades human experience and can contribute to people behaving in destructive ways. Stereotyping and prejudice affects stigmatized people self-actualization negatively which causes great human suffering. As people struggle with negative evaluations, it causes them identity crises. When People are born and raised in stereotyped systems they tend to have internalized beliefs that are brought about by the stereotypes. Being elements of prejudice defines how individuals receive members of other groups. Thus, prejudice has a great effect on people’s cultural activities.
Conclusion
Even though cultural prejudice has been with us for a long time, its effect on target groups cannot be overlooked. It has affected people adversely over time, mostly in a negative light. Though it is not an easy thing, there is need for people to eradicate prejudice and stereotypes. This will greatly help eliminate intergroup wars and also protect people’s culture. People will get a greater sense of identity and appreciation. However prejudice and stereotypes war is a war that is not going to be won any time soon. This owes to the fact that culture is a great part of human existence.
References
Allen, J. & Bruce, T. (2017), Constructing The other News Media Representations of a Predominantly ‘brown’ community in New Zealand.” Pac Journal Vol 1, 224.
Bar-Tal, D., Graumann, C., Kruglanski, A., & Stroebe, W. (2013). “Stereotyping and prejudice: Changing conceptions.”
Roth, J., Steffens, C. & Vignoles, V. (2018), Group Membership, Group Change, and Inter-Group Attitudes: A Recategorization Model Based on Cognitive Consistency Principles” Journal list front psychol Vol. 9, 479.
Rudman, L., Ashmore, R. & Gary, M. (2015). “Unlearning Automatic Biases; the Malleability of Implicit Prejudice and Stereotypes.” Vol 81, 856.
