Social Perception: Prejudicial Attitudes - Essay Example

SOCIAL PERCEPTION: PREJUDICIAL ATTITUDES By: al Affiliation Introduction Social Perception: Prejudicial Attitudes Introduction Social perception is a psychological science that studies and defines the ability of an individual to form an impression and inferences about other individuals or groups, which is done through observation as well as studying existing information attributed to specific social groups or individual. It is the perceptions that an individual believes others portray. Brain’s ability to store and process available information about other individuals known as social cognition plays a major role in social perception (Ata, Bastian, and Lusher, 2009). Aspects such as stereotyping and implicit personality theory among others are associated to social perception. People possess implicit prejudicial attitudes automatically elicited by members of specific groups, which influence important forms of behaviours (Ferguson and Bargh, 2004). Implicit personality theory describes the relationships among traits and other personal information such as values, behaviours, and roles, which are used by an individual to form impressions based on limited information of another unfamiliar individual (Schneider, 2004p. 173). The theory guide inferences of other people made by individuals, for example, the notion that a leader may be friendly indicate that the value is pre-assigned to the leader before awareness and contact with his/her personality. A stereotype is used to categorize an individual or certain social group into one major category despite of their diversity. Corsini, Craighead and Weiner (2010, p. 1276) indicate that stereotypes from a specific group in terms of ethnic, religion, race, and political have a common base, which suggest that they manifest similar behaviours and possess similar attitudes. Implicit personality theory and serotypes are closely associated, and contributes towards the categorization of social groups, which further lead to certain consequences such as prejudicial attitudes towards specific individuals or groups. Prejudicial attitude is an unreasonable negative prejudgment of an individual’s character before getting to know the person in details. The paper aims at using the implicit personality theory and stereotypes to evaluate the formation effects of prejudicial attitudes as well as effective strategies to reduce prejudice. Formation of Prejudicial attitude Development of prejudicial attitude is characterized by the behaviours individuals acquire from their social perception. What does it take a person to state, “Black people are inferior to whites?” Social cognition plays a major role in initial stages of prejudicial attitude development because it takes only one less intelligent black and one intelligent white to influence a social perceiver that all blacks are inferior and all whites are superior. According to Ferguson and Bargh (2004), people’s understanding of the sociological aspect of the world is shaped by previous knowledge and experiences. Prejudicial attitudes consist of cognitive, affective, and behavioural components (Camicia, 2007, P. 220). This indicates that process of developing prejudicial attitude begins with social cognition, which results to unjustifiable information because the moment an individual sees a black person, inferiority clings on his/her mind even before getting to know what that person is capable of doing (Pettigrew et al., 2007). The Implicit personality theory contributes to minimal awareness of another individual, with the mind processing the memory stored in the brain about specific people. After processing the encoded information, the individual develops a notion that the other individual’s roles, values and characters is similar to the retrieved information, which consequently lead to stereotypic perception or behaviour. Stereotypic perception of an individual contributes towards social categorization and social schemas (Schneider, 2004). This forms the second step of developing prejudicial attitude because the person feels that the other person is of less or higher social class depending on his perception. For example, an executive is always attributed to be financially stable; hence, any person encountering him/he for the first time will initially conclude that he/she is of higher social class in spite of what might be his/her realistic social class. The next stage is becoming aware of the stereotypes in a manner that is dictated by lack of adequate information to understand a person rather than the generalized perception. As a result, prejudicial attitude emerges which lead to avoiding a person or specific social group on a baseless ideologies. The process of developing prejudicial attitude is summarized by fig. 1. Figure 1 Process of prejudicial development. Social psychological theories on causes of prejudice and discrimination Many theories have been developed to explain the causes of prejudice and discrimination such as social dominance orientation and Scapegoat theory. Social dominance theory (SDT) indicates that discrimination, prejudice, and intergroup oppression are used by human societies to organize themselves in groups with hierarchies, in which the privileged and dominant groups enjoy disproportionate share of the good things in life such as powerful position good health and housing (Lange, Kruglanski and Higgins, 2012, P. 418). On the other hand, members of the subordinate groups receive the bad things such as poor health care and poor housing. Lange, Kruglanski and Higgins (2012), point out that the human universal creation of group-based social hierarchy is the main cause prejudice and discrimination, which manifest from the systematic process that form societal inequality. The theory is sufficiently supported by other studies and has been used by psychologists to understand human social life as well as other systematic outcomes from the social hierarchy. Researchers such as Pinnel (1999) acknowledged the effectiveness of the theory indicating that it considers dominant groups and denigrated groups as well as their relationship (Lange, Kruglanski and Higgins, 2012, P. 434). Additionally, Lange, Kruglanski and Higgins (2012) indicate that the theory puts the myriad components of inter-groups values, actions, beliefs, and structure together to explore and reveal how they function as a living social system Scapegoat theory was developed in 1940s from the general theory of frustration and egression after the observation of the relationship between frustrating experiences and prejudice (Zanna and Olson, 2013, P. 78). The theory suggested that prejudice was a way for the superior or majority group or individuals to relieve them from hostility and frustrations from other sources. Prejudice was a seen by the prejudiced people as a fulfilment of the hostility and negative stereotypes (Zanna and Olson, 2013, P. 78). Notably, the theory is not effective in explaining the cause of prejudice because it is based on an emotional concept and it has less attention of psychologists in explaining the cause of prejudice. The theory lacks empirical data to support it, unreliable usability, and only accounts for specific circumstances and conditions. Impact of prejudicial attitudes on an individual or groups Prejudicial attitudes have profound short term and long term impact on an individual or specific social group including racism, minority stress, curtailment of a person’s personality, conflicts with values systems, talent or social advances restrictions, depression, and stereotypic judgments. It undermines social justice in a liberal democracy (Camicia, 2007, P. 219). School environment is mostly affected by prejudicial attitudes that have seen loss of self-esteem and confidence of the minority students as reflected in academic results (Meyer, 2003). Racism is a main impact of prejudicial attitudes, which reduce inter-race relationships and restrict a minority social group ability to develop socially, economically and psychologically (Vescio et al., 2006). The antagonistic nature of prejudiced people leads to conflicts, for example, black people have always been reported to confront a white who happens to refer to them as ‘niggas’. Emotional stress due to prejudice is evident in an individual with a condition that is not normal or is different from the majority (Newheiser et al., 2009). Jane Elliott’s’ video reveals that having blue/brown eyes or have a different colour from the majority leads to a generalized assumptions of an individual that may lead to racial discrimination and a flawed perception (Elliott, 2012). Strategies used to reduce prejudice Diversified techniques are used to reduce prejudice and its effects in the society including multicultural education as well as the use of social media campaigns against prejudice among many others (Burgess et al., 2007). Fostering multicultural educational helps various individuals to learn about others in details and reflect racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. Multicultural education can be used to provide an opportunity for low-status students hindered from social interaction to access equitable learning environment. According to Camicia (2007), the use of inclusive instructions provides a way in which educators are determined to reduce prejudice and promote positive relationship between students from different social groups. Media has the capability of reaching diverse populations and plays an essential role in public perception of prejudicial attitudes; hence, very effective in the process of reducing prejudice in the society. Despite the media representation of stereotypes of prejudice, they can be properly harshened to challenge prejudice. Paluck (2009) indicate in his research in Rwanda that media cultures and programs influence beliefs. Consequently, the media can be used to hold campaigns that are focused to reverse the negative prejudicial attitude that inter-group perceive each other, which will contribute to the reduction of prejudice (Paluck and Green, 2009). Media campaigns focused on ‘changing minds’ will restore equality and the need for social change to accommodate diversity in the society. Conclusion The use of stereotypes helps in categorizing social groups depending on their role, race, values, and beliefs. However, stereotypes use contributes to the development of prejudice attitudes. Developing prejudicial attitude begins with minimal contact with unfamiliar individual; hence, lack of sufficient information leading to an unreliable prejudgment through social cognition. After the prejudgment, stereotypic behaviour is exhibited leading to minimal attention of an individual or group to another, which further leads to social categorization, and social schemas as well as prejudicial attitude. The impact of prejudice is diverse including racism, fostering discrimination, social tress, and conflicts and restrictions to general aspects of social advance. Prejudice can be reduced through the use various platforms including learning institutions which can foster the strategy of multicultural education to enhance equality for the minority. Media also forms another important platform where campaigns against prejudice can be conducted, which informs the public on the reality of others eliminating prejudgments and stereotypes developed by social cognition. Reference List Ata, A., Bastian, B. and Lusher, D. (2009). Intergroup contact in context: The mediating role of social norms and group-based perceptions on the contact--prejudice link. 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