Social Psychological Prejudice Reduction - Essay Example

118580 Social psychological analysis says that prejudice could be found in every human being and prejudice reduction is possible. It also blunts with social awareness, age and cognitive development. Individual and personality research of stereotypes have detected many aspects of prejudices including the automatic and controlled aspects, social and developmental aspects connecting to mainly modern forms of prejudice. Prejudice from the point of view of prejudiced is almost opposite to the prejudice from victims' perspective. Prejudice as a response to perceived social disadvantage could be different and more destructive. It gives way to intergroup emotions and might lead to unforeseen complications, if timely handling is unavailable. Historical origins of prejudice date back as ancient as human history. It is difficult to find any part of it not smeared with human prejudice. In modern times, prejudice is connected to psychoanalysis theories, methods and empirical findings of developmental psychology. It is also a part of concept of development, especially, cognitive development, language development, socialization and many more peer relations, emotional bondages and social interactions in the society. The term 'prejudiced' refers to people who view their adversaries as threats. They think that these adversaries are either inferior or immoral and this kind of prejudice makes them intensely dislike these 'enemies' and sometimes this becomes active opposition. It can continue to a dangerous level of opposition, creating tension, which will lead to violent confrontation. Prejudice reduction is a programme of techniques that are calculated to reduce the destructive stereotypes. Usually done individually or in small workshops like bringing together adversaries and advising them or bring the conflicting groups together and explaining to them. Small misunderstandings and assumptions, left unattended, give rise to huge problems and prejudices build up on these problems. When people talk and listen to one another, they realise that most of their assumptions had simple, clear explanations that had no resemblance to their assumptions. Making them to hold unprejudiced conversation in tension free atmosphere is best way of diffuse tension. First step towards success is considered to be the overcoming of 'communicating problems' in the case. "The final key to prejudice reduction is the willingness of the parties to tolerate their differences, especially with regard to moral issues. This is where the integrative system's search for common values which transcend differing values becomes critical" http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/prejred.htm Sometimes mass media does this work to reduce the prejudices of the society or general population. Other useful programmes are educating, propaganda, distributing prejudice-reducing literature and these do help. Educating programmes could be very beneficial in bringing down an unbridled bias. "One of the fundamental characteristics of stereotypes is that they are difficult to change once they become established. Of course, some stereotype do change, at least in some cases, but they may not change as fast as they should given the new information that we learn about group members," (Stangor, 2000, p. 13). Theories of prejudice include Social Reflection theory, that claims that prejudice reflects the differential values of various groups and their hierarchy, Inner State theory, which says that conflict arises with the not-so-good human being and the desire to be good, and Social-cognitive developmental theory that predicts various types of prejudices according to various age groups and their cognitive structure. Piaget's explanation of cognitive development of prejudice assumes that 'preferences develop parallel to cognitive processes'. "Social-cognitive developmental theories claim that prejudice is inevitable in young children because of their cognitive limitations. The prejudice seen in a child at one developmental stage is qualitatively different from the prejudice of a child at another stage because it arises out of a different understanding of the social world," (Aboud, 1988, p.27). Social cognition and understanding the world takes place very slowly and in many directions. Understanding others, their worlds, world around us and its ways do not happen in a hurry. Thoughts of the people and their intentions and feelings cannot be seen by others and hence, remain mysteries. Understanding anybody with emotional reactions is difficult because the emotional reactions can create further chain reactions that would ultimately lead to prejudices. At the same time, Durkin claims that understanding others could be a highly gratifying exercise. "Difficult as it may be to understand other people, we find the task very motivating. Some individuals are driven to extraordinary lengths by this task,; they train to become psychologists," (Durkin, 1995, p. 288). The child develops a concept of self, after discovering it in infancy and early childhood, which would lead to development of self-recognition, through visual recognition and emotional experiences. Organisation of these emotional experiences, dealing with strangers, forming strong and mild attachments, bouncing in happiness and crying in despair, all lead to the development of self-definition. With that, two faces of self will emerge, one as others see it, and the other, the all-important self-perception. When the child grows beyond childhood, self knowledge will lead to social context and various social attachments, prejudices, biases, happy relationships, ideologies sometimes leading to further prejudices will form. "development of a self-concept (or concepts) is an inherently social activity. The achievement of self-knowledge does not pop unaided out of an inquisitive little head, eagerly but independently formulating terms to capture noteworthy phenomena," (Durkin, 295). Realisation of self and others and public characteristics is used in emotional regulation in social contexts. 'Developing a self with, despite and because of other people', creates a self-concept and culture and gives way to the development of self-esteem. Integrating domains of self-knowledge and distinguishing people from other things happens with the development of person perception. As the child grows up, it starts social role taking, perspective taking with proper social behaviour and tries to understand other's intentions and emotions. Social comparisons remain a very real aspect of childhood and society, school and values, social reasoning and social knowledge usually form the basis of prejudice. Children look at the world in a very different way. They are seeing it for the first time and their likings and prejudices could be genuine. "The judgements that young children make are based not only on their immediate environment. Just as they discriminate between truth and falsehood, so they see the impinging of the world outside", (Cullingford, p.136). Prejudice reduction cannot be always easy because there are many elements that should be combined into a coordinated process. Some individuals might resist any reduction, and might even dislike prejudice breaking actions, which are called disarming techniques. , Successful communication, dialogic listening that is similar to active listening are very important in reduction process. Shuttle diplomacy and mediated communication through a mutually trusted third party, respectful dialogue, using unofficial communication channels can help in their own way. In larger contexts, citizen diplomacy, multitrack diplomacy, cross- cultural communications, rumour control teams, telecommunications based communication, public information strategy, media management and also establishing personal relationships will help in reducing prejudices. Prejudices about ones own country could be beneficial and if extremely strong, it could be a problem for all involved. "At its extreme form nationalism is a powerful force, poignant in the suffering of the First World War, manic in the demonstrations of National Socialism, absurd in the antics of the 'far sight'" (Cullingford, 2000, p.5). Training to deal with escalation, knowledge of cooling off periods, using of de-escalatory language, dealing with destructive and hateful speech, media management, step-by-step de-escalation, managing the ground rules, crisis management, establishing peacekeeping workers and observers are all very important in major prejudice reduction. Age factor sometimes proves important, as the adversaries usually mellow with the age. Age changes many prejudices, calms the people down and experience makes them to feel the other person. Hence, along with age, social roles, social awareness, diplomacy, one's own shortcomings, sympathetic understanding of the opposite side - all help in reducing prejudice, even though there is no effort to do so. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Aboud, Frances (1966), Children and Prejudice, Basil Blackwell, 1988. 2. Cullingford, Cedric (2000), Prejudice, from Individual identity to Nationalism in Young people, Kogan Page, London. 3. Durkin, Kevin (1995), Developmental Social Psychology, Blackwell Publishers, Massachusetts. 4. Stangor, Charles (2000), Stereotypes and Prejudice, essential readings, Psychology Press, Philadelphia. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/prejred.htm Read More