Prejudice & discrimination

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

Ballarat High School 2013

Tim Minchin is a British-born Australian comedian, actor, and musician. Minchin is best known for his musical comedy.Q1) What is the issue Tim is trying to raise?Q2) Can you figure it out before he reveals it (about half way through the song)Q3) What beliefs/stereotypes does he raise about this particular group of people?

Video - Warning some rude words!!

PrejudiceThe term prejudice literally means ‘prejudgement’. Because prejudice involves a judgement, it is usually considered to be an attitude, but specifically one for which the focus is people. Like other attitudes, prejudice can be positive or negative

Prejudice

Psychology has focused on the study of prejudice as a negative attitude, mainly because of the social problems that prejudice towards other people can cause.

Consequently, prejudice is often defined in psychology as holding a negative attitude towards the members of a group, based solely on their membership of that group.

Any group can be the focus of prejudice.

Prejudice

A person who is prejudiced against a particular group tends to evaluate its members negatively merely because they belong to that group.

Their individual characteristics or behaviour are usually overlooked.

It doesn't matter if the information about an individual or a group is faulty or incomplete.

They are viewed in a negative way simply because they belong to the specific group.

Ingroups and Outgroups

Prejudice often involves members of a majority group holding negative attitudes towards the members of a minority group. Ingroup: members of a majority group are

generally greater in number Outgroup: members of a minority group are

fewer in number

Four Characteristics Of Prejudice

According to American psychologist Herbert Blumer (1961) the charactistics of the ingroup: Belief that they are superior to the minority group

to whom the prejudice is directed. Belief the minority group is different from them

and that they ‘do not belong’. Belief that the majority are more powerful and

important than the minority group. The majority group that displays prejudiced

attitudes is insecure, fearing the minority group may become more powerful and important than itself.

Old-fashioned (Traditional) Prejudice

Australian psychologists Anne Pederson and Iain Walker (1997) describe old-fashioned prejudice as a form of prejudice in which members of the majority group openly reject minority

group members their views are obvious

and recognisable to others

Modern Prejudice

Pederson and Walker describe modern prejudice as a form of prejudice which is subtle hidden expressed in ways more likely to

be accepted within the majority group.

For example, modern racial prejudice includes the belief that black people have the right to opportunities available to all members of society, but they want more rights than anybody else and probably don't deserve these rights.

In Australian Society…

Modern forms of prejudice are more common than old-fashioned forms. illegal not socially acceptable.

However, prejudiced attitudes towards people in certain social groups still exist.

Prejudice may be still be widespread, but more difficult to observe than in previous times when it was more openly expressed (Aronson, 2008; Vaughan & Hogg, 2002).

Prejudice can also be expressed through behaviour. When this occurs, it is called discrimination. Discrimination refers to positive or negative behaviour that is directed towards a social group and its members.

Discrimination

Discrimination can take many forms.

For example, it may involve behaviour such as ignoring people excluding people from places or positions putting people down physical violence against a particular group genocide

Genocide involves the extermination of an entire group, such as Hitler's attempts to kill all Jewish people during World War II.

Direct Discrimination

Direct discrimination occurs when someone is treated unfairly and is disadvantaged because of a personal characteristic.

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination occurs when treating everybody the same way disadvantages someone because of a personal characteristic.

Prejudice and discrimination

Prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is a behaviour arising from prejudice.

When prejudice and discrimination are directed at people who are members of a particular group racism. sexism ageism.

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