Question

With regard to how prejudice is caused, explain four of the following:

• social cognition,
• attributional biases,
• blaming the victim,
• economic competition,
• normative rules,
• subtle sexism

Please be detailed in your answers

Please NO copy pasted answers

Answer 1

1. Social Cognition :

In social cognition, prejudice is a function of cognitive processes where stereotypic information about social groups, stored in memory, is automatically activated and affects people's judgments and behavior towards members of a target group.

Example: Sometimes we form stereotypes about people like about Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and in the course of time this becomes how we start perceiving these communities. This is what happened in Germany during the reign of Hitler where the stereotypes about the Jews is what came to be perceived socially.

2. Attributional Biases

The most common type of attributional error/bias we commit is called the fundamental attribution error which refers to attributing others behavior to internal causes (Person's characteristics, motivation, intention) while attributing external factors while interpreting once own behavior.

Example: In case you are at a traffic light and you see a man not stopping at the signal and driving through even when the light is red you are likely to attribute this to his personality (That is how he is, not rule conscientious etc) however if you ever did a similar thing you are more likely to attribute it to the environment, say you were late for the office, have a doctors appointment etc.

3. Blaming the victim

Prejudice also emerges in a society depending on the social, economic and perceived power of individuals.

Example: In a patriarchal society men are perceived to have greater power, politically and economically. They define the rules and regulations of society. Women in these societies are usually victims and when they fight for their rights they tend to get usually blamed for the same. There are many instances where raped victims are blamed for instigating and encouraging rape by the way they dress or their gestures. The same thing happens in the case of minorities as well.

4. Economic Competition

The current trade wars that we see between the US and China, with each country imposing tariff against each other and the general environment of protectionism and national interest has a tendency of leading to prejudice against the other country. when the profit motive is involved each country thinks of profit and maximizing their profit, this leads to competition and prejudice, where any step taken by a country to protect their interest is viewed as negative

5. Normative Rules

Societies and culture develop their own norms in the course of evolution, these norms are not overt but become a part of the value system of these cultures and over the course of time the normative rules of the other culture are perceived as negative

Example: There is a clear distinction between the western and eastern societies. There is more emphasis given to an individual in the western society and in eastern societies on the other hand collectivism is considered as the norm

6. Subtle Sexism

Another type of prejudice that is prevalent is prejudice based on gender. Gender stereotypes develop early in childhood, where these are fed into the child's mind by the environment i.e at home and at school.

Example: One classic example is 'Boys do not cry' this is told to the boys very early in their development process and gets imbibed in their psyche. Women are perceived to be weak and fragile and men are expected to be strong. This leads to stereotypes and leads to subtle sexism where the jokes and comments are centered on these stereotypes