Prejudice and Its Reduction: A Study on Contemporary Research and Real-World Perspective

This study discusses the different forms of prejudice, its impact on society, and ways to reduce it through educational strategies, diversity training, and media campaigns. It also highlights the contemporary research on prejudice in the UK and its impact on people's lives.

PSYC30860 social
Advanced Social and
Developmental Psychology

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Prejudice is an illogical or misguided attitude which are generally negative for an
individual who is exclusively on the individual relationship of social group. Prejudice also
forestall the individual from the chances through which they can acknowledge about a
community from the view point of that specific community. This generally divide the
community and leads Harassment, violence and abuse. Prejudice is different from
Discrimination as it involves behaviour and prejudice includes affective, behavioural and
cognitive. Person suffering from prejudice experiences anger, shame, sadness, demotivated on
excess motivated in order to make the changes. In this discussion, The real word prospective
about the prejudice and the way to decline its effects is discussed.
Main Body
Prejudice are the action which leads to people being treated differently. It come along
with the homophobia, intensional racism, inferiority and superiority complex. The individual
experiencing the Prejudice does not gate a chance to explain or share the story (Bhopal and
Pitkin, 2020). The perpetrators are also get affect along with the prejudice victims. When people
are in pre-judging state, they limit there potentials and excludes themselves from the
opportunities to learn and grow. This is damaging the growth and development of society and
culture also. Prejudice are of different types like, Sexism are the gender based prejudice under
which both man and women get affected. The differences based on national group or race are
Racism. Colour differences are the most common example of racism (Vervaet, Van Houtte and
Stevens, 2018). Prejudice based on cultural heritage, traditional dress, language are Ethnicity.
Some time combination of differences are also experienced like combination of religion and race
for example, prejudice for Muslims are called Islamophobia, prejudice for Jews are called anti-
Semitism and the prejudice for homosexual are called Homophobia. The prejudices experienced
due to age, is called ageism and some other categories of prejudice are concerned with disability,
choice of life-style, social class.
In United Kingdom, various people have negative attitudes on race and ethnicity which
results in discrimination, racially motivated murders and riots. Racism is correlated with
unemployment and immigration in an area. A survey was done on 3000 people in Britain along
with the monitory group. The Outcome of the survey suggest that almost 70% Muslim people

have gone through religion based prejudice. Racial prejudice are experienced by 64% of black
ethnic background, Sexual prejudice are experienced by 46% people from gay, lesbian and
bisexual background. 44% people have negative attributes towards minority group and only 10%
people have supported the concept of equality for all Britain groups. 14% people have opinion
that they feel uncomfortable if they are surrounded by any Muslim or transgender people
(EXTENT OF PREJUDICE IN BRITAIN REVEALED BY NEW RESEARCH, (2018)).
This negative attitude openly obstruct the formative debates about the obstruction people face
and create mistrust in the society. This data reflects a complete picture of prejudice in Britain and
also helping in understanding the impact of prejudice on peoples lives. While focusing on
Sexism, U.K has insistent gender pay gap, the most related factor are part-time work, size of the
organisation education and the occupational segregation as women are not included in
managerial and high paying professional working. Apart from this when consider the working
hour , a pay gap still exist and keep on increasing in-spite of working for more hour by women in
some fields. There are some research based evidences which shows how prejudice can be
reduced like educational strategies, short term diversity training courses and media campaigns
(Hsieh, Faulkner and Wickes, 2022).
Reduction of Prejudice through Educational initiatives through activities such as
discussion and peer influences, multi cultural curriculum, cooperative learning. It boost positive
dealings through thought-provoking Stereotypes and false myths about groups. This may
consider direct contacts between the groups For example, students from different religious belief
institution, taking part in mutual learning or peer discussion on topics which creates divisions.
Some educational initiatory may lead to prolonged contact such as empathy and perspectives.
This practice will help the minorities where direct contact is impractical and may be debatable
for example, dealing with transgender. Diversity training in corporate workplace and adults
group, this type of training includes educational form such as giving lectures and showing videos
and other synergistic activities such as role play and discussions. Diversity training also includes
overcoming ignorance, feeling empathy for for other individuals or group, expressing
assumptions which are hidden. Diversity training program have some limitation also. Firstly,
diversity training program are not generally evaluated or directly evaluated after session by the
associates. This it is impossible to track the attitude or behaviour. Initiation of Prejudice
reduction program For example, 'Stereotype Change and Prejudice Reduction: Short- and Long-

term Evaluation of a Cross-cultural Awareness Programme'. This is an anti-racist educational
course which was used in south Australia. The aim of the program is to reduce prejudice towards
the Aboriginal group of Australian. This group are denounce, stereotyped and discriminated. The
result of are really positive, A significant change of state in knowledge is marked and change of
magnitude in old-fashioned prejudice (Cobbinah and Lewis, 2018).
Media based intercession are regularly used as an plan of attack for tackling the
prejudice. This can be done through TV, radio and the internet. The initiative may include
advertising, storylines, poster campaigns, television program and plays. The media intervention
includes encouraging of reporting discrimination or abuse, general awareness-raising and
campaign targetting certain group setting. Media is convenient way of providing children an
indirect contact especially to those children which has little or less opportunity for direct
contacts. With the help of Media campaign the government and criminal agencies promote
changes through raising awareness and challenging attitudes.
The contemporary research is the research based studies which impact on the
instructional leadership and practice. The contemporary research help the scientist to think
socially and it increase the involvement of critical reasoning and their arguments which is based
on empirical evidence. The contemporary research is very efficient way of study and very
important way to explore the things which is relevant to the present context. The contemporary
research helpful in estimation of the direction, movements and trends of certain aspects which is
happening nowadays. The contemporary focus on different areas or field and it provides the
multidisciplinary concepts. As per the author Ruth Hacklett, Amy Ronaldson and his collegues,
their article racial discrimination and health, the racism is connected to the poor health. The
studies of author has described that the prejudice has prevailed in the United Kingdom which is
based in the colour, nationality, ethnic etc. The prejudice has been seen in terms of
discrimination in the United Kingdom which show the inequalities in education, work, health and
criminal justice. The most common type of prejudice in united kingdom is discrimination in the
basic of ethnic origin. The research has showed the 64% adults are suffering from racial
discrimination. The racial discrimination includes the feeling of unsafe, insulted and avoided by
the certain groups of people. The level of prejudice increase the mental health problems in the
United Kingdom. The prejudice has increased the physiological distress and long-lasting illness.
The prejudice can be seen more among the adults of United Kingdom because they comes in

minorities groups. The discrimination is the factor which decrease the level of quality of life of
people and it creates the hindrance in the development of country (Racial discrimination
and health: a prospective study of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom,
(2020)). As per view of author Ruth and et. al., 2020 the intervention is very useful in and it
can be categorised in the three parts. The educational strategy, media campaign, diversity
training course for the people, enforcement of law and legislation related to the prejudice. The
educational approach is the main key for reducing the prejudice. The prejudice reduction through
study includes the peer influence, healthy discussion between different groups of communities to
avoids the myths and stereotypes which increase the prejudice. The education can increase the
sharing prospective which decrease the chance of conflict. The short term training which
includes the interactive activities and group discussion. The diversity training can reduce the
ignorance and it explore the strength and weakness of the community which has discriminated
by the society. The media is the best way to reduce the prejudice in the United Kingdom because
it is the way of creating the awareness by radio, television, internet, poster, campaign,
advertisements to large groups of people (Pawelski, 2021). The media can play very important
role in anti prejudice campaigns and can work in three part like general awareness program,
encouragement of people towards the reporting of discrimination. The media can discourage the
discrimination through the various programs and can be helpful in prejudice. The enforcement of
law which has established by the legislation against the prejudice effectively can reduce the
discrimination and prejudice practice in the United Kingdom.
Conclusion
Prejudice are the action which leads to people being treated differently. When people are
in pre-judging state, they limit there potentials and excludes themselves from the opportunities to
learn and grow. There are different form of Prejudice noticed like Sexism, Racism, Ethnicity,
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Homophobia. Prejudice can be reduced through educational
strategies, short term diversity training courses and media campaigns. The contemorary research
of prejudice in UK reflects that older age are majorly prejudiced which can be reduced by
discussion programs and media campaign.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bhopal, K. and Pitkin, C., 2020. ‘Same old story, just a different policy’: race and policy making
in higher education in the UK. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(4), pp.530-547.
Cobbinah, S.S. and Lewis, J., 2018. Racism & Health: A public health perspective on racial
discrimination. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 24(5), pp.995-998.
Hsieh, W., Faulkner, N. and Wickes, R., 2022. Perceived Variability as a Video-Media Prejudice
Reduction Intervention. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, pp.1-18.
Pawelski, J.O., 2021. The positive humanities: Culture and human flourishing. The Oxford
handbook of the positive humanities, p.17.
Vervaet, R., Van Houtte, M. and Stevens, P.A., 2018. Multicultural school leadership,
multicultural teacher culture and the ethnic prejudice of Flemish pupils. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 76, pp.68-77.
Online
EXTENT OF PREJUDICE IN BRITAIN REVEALED BY NEW RESEARCH, 2018 [Online]
Available through<https://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/extent-of-prejudice-in-britain-revealed-by-new-
research>
Racial discrimination and health: a prospective study of ethnic minorities in
the United Kingdom, 2020 [Online] Available
through<https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/
s12889-020-09792-1>