Prejudice and discrimination

The essentials

Prejudice is an attitude, usually negative, towards a particular group based on group membership rather than individual characteristics. Its cognitive component is the stereotype (a cluster of beliefs about a group), the affective component is dislike or hatred, and the behavioural component is discrimination (behaviour showing negative treatment of members of the group). Prejudice can exist without discrimination, and discrimination can exist without prejudice.

Key points

Sources of prejudice:

• Learning: from family, reference groups, personal experience and media.
• Strong social identity and ingroup bias: favouring one's own group and looking down on outgroups.
• Scapegoating: blaming a weaker outgroup for the frustrations and problems of the majority.
• Kernel-of-truth concept: some stereotypes may contain a small element of truth, which is wrongly generalised.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: the target group behaves in ways that confirm the prejudice because of how it is treated.

Strategies to reduce prejudice:

• Minimise opportunities to learn prejudice.
• Change negative attitudes through education and information, correcting stereotypes.
• Intergroup contact (the contact hypothesis): contact helps when groups have equal status, work cooperatively towards common goals, have close and lasting interaction and receive support from authorities.
• Highlight individual identity rather than group identity, and reduce the feeling of hopelessness in victims.

Exam tips

• Remember: stereotype = belief, prejudice = attitude, discrimination = behaviour.

Common mistakes

• Assuming any contact reduces prejudice; competitive or unequal contact can increase it.
• Treating scapegoating as ingroup bias; scapegoating specifically blames a weaker group for one's problems.