Prejudice and bigotry are feelings we have all experienced or have displayed towards others at some point in our lives. How are prejudices created and motivated? Prejudice is not rooted from an individual source; it’s a combination of different external factors that complicate our feelings and outlook towards other people. One way in which prejudice is derived is from psychological behaviors and attitudes in individuals in dominant and minority groups. It is a “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”. There are many different psychological reasons that cause individuals to form prejudgments.
When people think of prejudice, they envisage conscious prejudice, individuals who are openly discriminatory and racist. However, unconscious bias exists within each individual and is formed through many different factors. The predisposed feelings that arise in people lead them to create certain conclusions about different types of people without experiencing the situations they hold to be “true”. Unconscious prejudice exists within every individual and is formed through self-justification, genuine prejudice, and personality as it’s developed from childhood.
Prejudice is a concept that cannot be defined in simple terms. Prejudice is broken up into two major groups, conscious and unconscious prejudice. Affiliates in hate groups are consciously prejudiced and display negativity towards certain groups. Unconscious prejudice is the type that’s implicit; we are unaware of this type of prejudice existing among us and let it influence our behavior towards those certain groups. Holding prejudice is when we assume facts about a race or ethnic group without fully being knowledgeable enough to take a stance. Prejudice has many different levels: emotional, action-oriented, and cognitive (Parillo, 385).
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The cognitive level of prejudice creates generalizations in the mind about different groups. We form generalizations on people based on our assumptions of how they’re categorized in society. We stereotype groups that we don’t have enough understanding of. Building on those stereotypes eventually leads up to discrimination of the members of those groups. The emotional level of prejudice causes us to form stereotypes based on our personal interactions and experiences with members of that group. By placing groups on a “socioeconomic ladder”, we depict them and treat them according to their rank (Parillo, 386). Finally, the action-oriented level of prejudice makes our mind act on the stereotypes we form from the previous two levels. We justify our immoral conduct by harboring “strong feelings” about the groups and blaming our behavior towards them on a baseless claim. The levels of prejudice indicate how individuals build prejudice against different groups and their deportment towards them.
Within the socialization process, prejudicial thoughts are embedded into a child through family, teachers, and mentors. The child develops prejudice when evolving into an adult and absorbs the ideas without having the mental capability to differentiate what is right and wrong. Children are the best imitators and model how the adults in their surroundings speak and act. They act through secondhand learning, mimicking the mentalities and behaviors of their mentors and parents without the capability to consider and be mindful of what they’re learning. The prejudice we inherit from our parents shapes our values and beliefs as we transition into adulthood. For example, if we develop our understanding of African Americans being taught that they are criminals and dangerous—common stereotypes, we will avoid interacting with them. Some prejudiced behavior roots from institutionalized ideas that are projected in school and carried out by students and children who lack the knowledge. In most cases, this leads to bullying which negatively affects their minds and causes feelings of anxiety and anger. They victimize others on the basis that the immoral conduct is justified.
Racism on an individual level relates to pain and trauma from an early age. Some children develop “authoritarian personalities” through experiencing harsh sovereignty in their household (Parillo, 389). When parents have such discipline and attitudes, many children cling to feelings of insecurity and powerlessness, which are displayed later in adulthood. Free-floating aggression exhibits individuals directing energy against a powerless group to compensate for feelings of insecurity. In other words, these people displace their anger and direct it towards vulnerable groups of people to reconcile for their childhood loss.
Studies in The Authoritarian Personality conducted by T.W. Adorno and his colleagues showed that extremely prejudiced people inordinately surmounted from strict households. The study used different scales testing fascism, anti-Semitism, and ethnocentrism in individuals which revealed those who scored high were also raised in authoritarian households. Although this helps us recognize patterns in personality leading to prejudice, there are social factors that primarily cause prejudice.
“Basic association” is a form of prejudice in which human minds join one concept to another through stereotypes by associating two things that constantly happen simultaneously (Dunwoody, 28). People build stereotypes by categorizing a group of people based on their own experiences or family experiences with those individuals. Furthermore, we create stereotypes based on recurring factual evidence. Dunwoody’s example clarifies this point using Congress officials’ demographics. For over a decade, the majority of Congress has been composed of old, white males. Therefore, when we think of congressmen, we visualize an old, white man. However, this is not the case. We subconsciously form and harbor these stereotypes, holding biases because they’re experiential, not theoretical.
Media and television are two major outlets that play a major role and highly impact the prejudicial thoughts we build on. Our environment conditions us to carry certain beliefs and values to be true when they are subjective. The media represents different ethnicities by sensationalizing a repetitive pattern which causes us to form beliefs based on those portrayals. Often, whilst watching television, you will see an African American being portrayed negatively or as the perpetrator, or an Asian playing the role of a doctor/educator. A specific type of ethnicity is almost always playing the same role in various performances. Advertisements also marginalize stereotypical beliefs by predominantly displaying ads promoting racial inequality. This form of media portrayal perpetuates different stereotypes because they assimilate in our minds after being seen several times. We unconsciously recollect these visions when thinking of a certain ethnic group and base our judgments on that, rather than visualizing them in a rational way.
Rationalization, self-justification, and emotional prejudice are linked to a different type of prejudice which enables an individual to “mak[e] something seem reasonable even when it is not…” (Dunwoody, 16). Tragical moments in history like slavery and genocide have been vindicated and deemed just at the time. Self-justification, like rationalization, causes people to deprecate “a person or group to justify maltreatment of them” (Parillo, 387). It involves reassuring yourself that an unjust action or irrational choice is valid. By convincing ourselves and psychologically rewiring the negative ideas, we persuade ourselves to think of other groups as less than us, discriminate them, and create biases. When we convince our minds to believe another group is dangerous and subordinate, we feel it’s okay to treat them bad. Looking back to those times where genocide and slavery happened, the injustices against Jews and African Americans were deemed right and compulsory.
Self-justification can work in a reverse psychology. It’s the second step in building prejudice and occurs AFTER the fact. Discriminatory discourse isn’t made up then followed; it’s done in order to justify actions that have already happened. We commit terrible atrocities because of our own insecurities and cognitive ideas, then seek ways to justify it. For instance, slavery was in no way a humane or justifiable act. Slavery is a violation of human rights. Yet, it was admissible based on economic and scientific principles. Supposedly, worldwide economic forces came together and created slavery, yet this theory was developed after slavery had already happened. “Notes on the State of Virginia” displays Thomas Jefferson’s cognitive, subtle self-justifying prejudicial view of African Americans.
Thomas Jefferson was an intellect, a product of the Enlightenment, and a creature of discipline and progress. He was able to predict history and knew African Americans would not be able to be sustained indefinitely. Although he was greatly intelligent, he was unable to rise above being a product of his time. He was a white supremacist who tried convincing himself that he isn’t racist by basing prejudicial thoughts towards African Americans on science. On page 380, he speaks of blacks like they’re a different species, “…as uniformly as is the presence of the Oranootan for the black woman,” comparing the females to Orangutan monkeys (Jefferson, 380). Jefferson used pseudo biological traits pertaining to beauty to try and make sense of the racist ideas logical. He used technical jargon with non-technical opinions to reason with his racist beliefs.
Slavery and racist policies towards African Americans were defended on the concept of science. Thomas Jefferson had a one-dimensional appeal to scientific language, and this is clearly portrayed in his work. His claims were a desperate attempt to justify a system already in place. He argues “…there are other physical differences proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor. This greater degree of transpiration, renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than the whites.” (Jefferson, 380). Blacks were proclaimed evil and inferior, blaming nature for their prejudiced intolerance. These notions still patronize the prejudices society holds towards African Americans to this day. Self-justification psychologically rewires the brain by using reverse engineering to make false information seem true. Thomas Jefferson’s view on emancipation was extremely important; he valued establishing transcendence, individual rights, and liberty yet still stayed confined to the racist culture of his time.
Whilst there are social norms contributing to prejudice forming and causing reactions in humans, there is no single factor that can account for it. Prejudice is a combination of factors that conjoin and allow our minds to create conclusions without rational reasoning. It’s important to focus on ways to improve racial and ethnic relations to coexist as mankind. The first step to combatting racism and prejudice is to acknowledge its existence. If people don’t openly discuss what prejudicial bias is, especially with children who lack better understanding, it won’t be declared an issue. When a child is developing into an adult, it’s essential to teach them to be accepting of individuals with different racial and religious backgrounds. Some ways to combat these types of prejudice and prevent them from occurring would be to visit other cultural groups or reach out to multiethnic societies, educate students in school, and survey different races.
Visiting different cultural groups and multiethnic societies will allow the different group members to interact and become familiarized with that culture. It will teach people to value other’s beliefs and cultural traditions. Educating students in school is essential because it’ll teach students how to identify and reject racist notions. Through including educational classes or monthly discussions during assemblies in schools, we can educate students on how to overcome racist beliefs that are prevalent in society today. Surveying different races to find out what they think is the primary cause of racism and ways to approach solutions will help society gain many effective proposals. Individuals who have been subject to prejudice and racism may give better solutions than those who haven’t experienced it. Arranging symposiums in neighborhood district meetings to discuss issues among ethnicities, religions, and people who live secular lifestyles would also be beneficial in tackling prejudice because engaging with different groups of people would help us better understand them. After all, we can help form better leaders for tomorrow by enlightening them today.
Overall, racial prejudice is built in the human mind based on unconscious biases we form. Prejudice is developed from childhood when kids behave like the adults around them who unconsciously project racist beliefs. Genuine prejudice is formed when the mind associates two recurring concepts together to form stereotypes. Self-justification is a type of prejudice that causes the mind to rationalize a bad situation after it’s committed. Unconscious bias fails to allow the human mind to reasonably draw conclusions on different backgrounds of people. Although we envision racism and prejudice to be conscious, our minds psychologically develop “implicit bias” which impacts our behavior towards certain ethnic groups. In order to effectively reduce prejudice and racism from expanding, we must first accept that prejudice exists among us all, even if we are oblivious to it. Once we are regardful of the way our minds can be prejudiced towards others, we can take steps to lessen its impact on society.
