Understanding Prejudice, Discrimination, and Stereotype in Psychology

This essay explores the interconnected concepts of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes, providing clear definitions and examples. It begins by defining prejudice as biased thinking based on group affiliation, such as race or gender, and how it is not based on facts. It then delves into the concept of discrimination as actions taken against an individual or a group, often based on similar group affiliations, with the note that there are laws against it. Finally, the essay explains stereotypes as oversimplified generalizations about a community of groups, not based on facts, but mistaken perceptions. The essay uses activities such as “Advertisement Analysis Activity”, “Giving Face Information to Fact-Check”, and “Reading out list of things and asking for hands up if you think it is a girl thing or a boy thing” to clarify these concepts. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding these concepts and how they affect society.

Running head: PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPE
Prejudice, Discrimination and Stereotype
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPE
The terms prejudice, discrimination and stereotype are often used interchangeably by
people in their daily conversation. However, there are some significant differences in
between these three concepts.
Prejudice
Firstly, it is the prejudice, which is all about the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes,
viewpoints and feelings of an individual about another individual or group (Hodson and
Dhont 2015). It is not based on experience or facts. Rather, it is based on prejudgments that
are based on race, age, sexual orientation, class, status, nationality, religion or gender. For
instance, an individual might be prejudiced against others on the basis of his race or gender
and this can be termed as sexism or sexist. In other words, it can be referred to as biased
thinking. A group activity that can clear the concept can include that of “Advertisement
Analysis Activity”.
Discrimination
Secondly, the concept of discrimination consists of the actions that are taken against
an individual or a group (Dion 2014). It is all about treating an individual unfairly because of
who he/she is or because he/she possess certain characteristics. It can also be based on race,
age, sexual orientation, class, status, nationality, religion or gender, for example, refusing a
child for a placement in the education system because of his disability. However, there are
certain laws against discrimination that are set forth by the governments to address this social
issue. A group activity that can clear the concept can include that of “Giving Face
Information to Fact-Check”.
Stereotypes:

2PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPE
Finally, stereotypes can be referred to as some oversimplified generalisations about a
community of groups (McFarlane 2014). In other words, stereotypes are socially shared set of
beliefs regarding certain traits of the members of a social category. These are also not based
on facts and figures, but on mistaken perceptions, segregation and incomplete information.
For example, people with disability are often stereotyped by others as being dependent and
helpless or a person being called a “hipster” for wearing a particular hat. A group activity that
can clear the concept can include that of “Reading out list of things and asking for hands up
if you think it is a girl thing or a boy thing”.

3PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPE
References:
Dion, K.L., 2014. Responses to perceived discrimination and relative deprivation. In Relative
deprivation and social comparison (pp. 171-192). Psychology Press.
Hodson, G. and Dhont, K., 2015. The person-based nature of prejudice: Individual difference
predictors of intergroup negativity. European Review of Social Psychology, 26(1), pp.1-42.
McFarlane, D.A., 2014. A positive theory of stereotyping and stereotypes: is stereotyping
useful?. Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 8(1).