In general, when talking about prejudices, everybody agrees that they are something negative and that it is wrong to have them .

Whether it’s social pressure or greater sensitivity and empathy towards others, most of society agrees that it’s not right to judge others, and that an effort should be made to try to overcome them.

However, we do not realize that everyone has them and that, in one way or another, prejudice, which is what we are going to talk about in this article, plays a role.

Let’s see what prejudice is, how it originates, what function it fulfils and some relevant theories on the subject.

What are prejudices?

Biases are predetermined beliefs about a person, object or situation . These beliefs may be true, although, in most cases, they are not usually so, and they can be very exaggerated. Assuming what a person is like based on different characteristics, such as sex, race, nationality or sexual orientation, is something that occurs unconsciously and usually involves negative feelings and attitudes.

One of the most outstanding figures within social psychology who has addressed the phenomenon of prejudice has been Gordon Allport. This psychologist, who worked at Harvard University, defines prejudice in The nature of Prejudice (1954) as the negative labelling that is done on the basis of beliefs acquired through people and situations that are important in the development of the individual, especially during childhood and through the family.

The functionality of prejudices is that they allow, in a way, to simplify the world. We are exposed to a great deal of information and are required to make decisions quickly, without allowing ourselves to reflect on them. Categorizing people based on their most striking features, instead of going deeper into how they really are, avoids fatigue and saves effort.

How are they generated?

Prejudice can arise from convenience. In the most serious cases, the purpose of prejudging is the submission of a particular group. They commonly originate from negative attitudes towards a group of which there is little real knowledge .

It can also be the result of a generalization based on a past negative experience. In other words, a person who has a stereotypical view of, for example, Romanians, may defend it by the fact of having been mugged in the past by one of this nationality.

Cultural factors play a major role in generating prejudice. It is common for the family or a particular culture to promote wrong comments and beliefs about certain people, which may be seen as ‘right’ or which could be subsumed under the expression of ‘think badly and you’ll get it right’. Furthermore, almost by inertia, criticism of others is encouraged rather than taking an empathic view and trying to put oneself in the other’s place.

How do they influence us?

Prejudices, based on stereotypes, are no more than generalizations about something that is not very well known. In this way, the world is simplified, even if it is done in a way that can be very wrong and cause harm to others.

Prejudices do not only affect people who are part of the stereotyped group, as women are from sexism or refugees from anti-immigration movements. They also influence those people who are not part of the stereotyped group, making them more hostile or cautious when they see people from the other group.

Thus, prejudices tend to encourage negative biases , although, as we have already commented before, there may also be situations in which there is a false but positive belief about a certain group. For example, to assume that all Finnish people are very smart because Finland has one of the best education systems in the world is indeed prejudiced, and may imply overestimating their intelligence.

Although many people say otherwise, prejudice interferes significantly with our daily lives. They involve a multitude of attitudes, thoughts, predispositions and feelings that can make us change our behaviour in a striking way. For example, changing the sidewalk when a black person approaches us, speaking more slowly to a person with an unusual name or one that sounds foreign, or not touching a person with HIV for fear of contagion or disgust.

Theories on this phenomenon

When we talk about prejudices we cannot leave aside the concepts of exogrupal homogeneity and endogrupal heterogeneity . It is common to believe that people from another group are more similar to each other, while people from one’s own group are more distinguishable from each other.

This phenomenon can be better understood with an example. A Christian may have the mistaken belief that all Muslims are violent and abuse women and children, while when talking about the problem of pedophilia in the Catholic Church he has a greater tendency to differentiate between good Christians and bad Christians.

The Robber’s Cave Experiment, by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif (1954)

In this experiment, more than 20 11-year-old children were taken and signed up to go camping. The children were divided into two groups and stayed in camps that were far apart, in order to avoid any initial contact between the two groups.

After a few days, the researchers brought the groups together through sports competitions and other activities in which they played group against group. These contacts generated friction, making both groups hostile to each other.

This hostility was so high that the Sheriffs had to speed up the last phase of the investigation , in which they encouraged contact between the members of both groups so that, in order to achieve some goals, they had to collaborate as if they were a single team.

Just as the researchers had generated tensions between the two groups, they also generated friendship and sympathy in the final phase, showing that if people who do not know each other very well work together for mutual benefit, the barrier of stereotypes can be broken.

Contact hypothesis: can prejudice be reduced?

Without a doubt, having negative beliefs about others is a bad thing that can cause harm, so trying to overcome these stereotypes is beneficial for both those who believe them and those who are victims of them.

The contact hypothesis holds that the prejudices and stereotypes that people in the endogroup hold about the exoclusive group could be reduced through continued contact between members of the two groups. For this to happen six factors need to be met :

  • that members of both groups have a degree of mutual interdependence
  • the two groups need to share the same objective
  • must have the same status
  • opportunities should be provided for interpersonal contact between groups
  • there should be many contacts both within and between groups
  • There must be rules to promote equality, and they must be taken into account during the process.

Thus, if these conditions were met, people belonging to two groups could learn from each other, cooperate together to achieve the same goals, and understand that they are not as different as they might think.

The aspect of having the same social status is very important, since it facilitates greater empathy. For example, a white worker and a black worker understand that both may be equally oppressed by their respective bosses or that cisexual women and transgender women are oppressed by the hetero-patriarchal society.

Bibliographic references:

  • MacRae, C. Neil; Bodenhausen, Galen V. (2001). “Social cognition: Categorical person perception”. British Journal of Psychology. 92 (Pt 1): 239-55. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.318.4390. doi:10.1348/000712601162059
  • Sherman, Jeffrey W.; Lee, Angela Y.; Bessenoff, Gayle R.; Frost, Leigh A. (1998). Stereotype efficiency reconsidered: Encoding flexibility under cognitive load. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 75 (3): 589-606. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.75.3.589
  • Brandt, M; Crawford, J (2016). Answering Unresolved Questions About the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Prejudice. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 7 (8): 884-892. doi:10.1177/1948550616660592