Stereotype and Prejudice : Essay

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Added on 2020-05-28

Stereotype and Prejudice : Essay

Added on 2020-05-28

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Running head: STEREOTYPE AND PREJUDICEStereotype and PrejudiceName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor Note

1STEREOTYPE AND PREJUDICEStereotypes and prejudices are the set of biases, which help in creating a divide in thesociety. In this essay, the stereotypes and prejudices are analyzed as the social bias, which createa divide in the society. The social cognition and the related issues leading to the inculcation ofthe stereotypes and prejudices are studied in detail. The Social Cognition Theory (SIT) is studiedas the chief cause of the stereotypes and prejudices in the society. The identification with thesociety by an individual often leads to the acceptance of social stereotypes according to thistheory. The theory is analyzed in relation to the Realistic Group Conflict Theory. Analyzingthese theories one can ascertain the correlation between prejudice and stereotypes.The stereotypes are a set of ideals of beliefs attached to the group of people by another.The stereotypes can be of different based on the behavioral patterns of the society they are aboutand the beliefs of the society they are in (Hamilton 2015). The prejudice is the negative behaviortowards an individual or group based on their belonging into a certain social group (Kite andWhitley Jr 2016). The prejudices and the stereotypes are interdependent on each other as they areoften resultant of the prevalence of the other. The stereotypes often arise due to the prejudice thatone society has for another, and the prejudice may arise out of the stereotypes that are prevalentin the society. Social Identity Theory (SIT) propounded by Tajfel and Turner (1978) can explainthe cognitive reason for the indoctrination of the stereotypes and prejudices in the society. TheSIT depends on the cognition of human and the need of an individual to identify itself with thesociety. When an individual identifies oneself with a certain group of society, they follow thenorms and the rules of the society. The adhering to the common notions and the behaviors in thesociety helps in the formation of the ideology of “We” and “Them” that is that who can beconsidered as the one who is not. The social identity of an individual and can based on a numberof thing and multiple identities at ones such as religion, nationality, political ideology among

2STEREOTYPE AND PREJUDICEother belief (Christ et al. 2014). The identifications of oneself with a certain belief system makethe individual to question the belief system of the others, who are considered as “them” (Smith2014). The different societies thus formed have a sense of competition of supremacy amongthemselves. The ideologies of conflict among the societies lead to the formation of negativeideals among the competing societies about each other leading to the formation of stereotypes.The competitive societies also see the any help from the competitors as the infiltration from thenleading to the prejudices. One of the other important theories working in cohesion with the SIT to give rise to theStereotypes and Prejudices is the Realistic Group Conflict Theory. The realistic group conflictsoccur when the groups are in conflict for a resource, which is considered as limited. This theorygreatly explains the favoritism shown by the companies and organizations in a certain society(Mackie and Hamilton 2014). The people owning an organization in America show a prejudicetowards the Muslims who are ardent followers of the religion and have physical attributes toshow for it. This is because of the fact that there is a common misconception or stereotype ormisconception that people who are ardent followers of Islam have a terrorist link (Mohammed2015). These stereotypes are born because anyone with that attributes are considered outsiders inthe American society more so after the 9/11 attacks. The stereotypes have been reinforcedbecause of the rising terrorism in the Islamic countries. The stereotypes thus created create issuesfor the people seeing to work from poor countries like Bangladesh. The stereotyping leads toprejudices for a number of people in the society. The stereotypes and the prejudices are not onlyprevalent as cultural but are also gender and color based. The stereotype of women being baddrivers, leads to the prejudice against them in Saudi Arabia where women were not allowed todrive for a long time until recently (Danforth 2016). The societies base their prejudices on the

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