Prejudice

Prejudice is the foundation that leads to the ‘ism’s we are familiar with in our everyday life. A person who is prejudice is a part of group and discriminates against another group that is unlike them. In order to be prejudice you must participate in some sort of group in order to single out another individual or pack of people that different in some way. In the article “Understanding Prejudice” there is a part that discusses how we have long focused on the victims or prejudices instead of focusing where the problem actually stems from, the people who demonstrating prejudices. One of the major ways in which we learn prejudices, is by the many stereotypes we are introduced to as children. In young age, since we are introduced to these stereotypes we hold on to them until later age when we encounter a certain circumstance which we think only proves those stereotypes right, and if there is a situation which does not fit into the stereotype which we believe, we simply do not pay attention to it. Later on we build a belief system of what we think is right and correct based on the foundation of these previously learned stereotypes. Hence when we are being prejudice we are not aware of this because these ideas are already embedded in us so we unconsciously are being prejudice. In the article beliefs, values, and attitudes prejudices are discussed more in depth. It is explained that stress is a major reason why humans avoid certain situations because we as human beings like to avoid stressful and uncomfortable situations. Stressful situations lead to feeling somewhat threatened which then leads to fear which are all uncomfortable feelings for any person so we tend to try to avoid them altogether often times. What we tend to think of good and bad is culturally influenced. It makes sense that our perception of good and bad would be determined greatly by our culture because our culture gives us what we think of initially as the only right and correct way things are done. As soon as we are exposed to something different which we are not familiar through our culture, we assume it is bad or incorrect. These thoughts or beliefs later lead into behaviors against any other group unlike our own, we use antilocution, avoidance, discrimination, etc.