75 15.2: Thoughts Become Behaviors
What we know becomes what we feel. And what we feel affects our behavior. Let’s look at how stereotypes can lead to discrimination.
Table 15.1: Definitions [228]
|
Term |
Function |
Definition |
|
Stereotype |
Cognitive; thoughts about people |
Overgeneralized beliefs about people may lead to prejudice |
|
Prejudice |
Affective; feelings about people, both positive and negative |
Feelings may influence treatment of others |
|
Discrimination |
Behavior; the treatment of others |
Holding stereotypes and harboring prejudice may lead to excluding, avoiding, and biased treatment of group members |
Stereotypes
Stereotypes are distorted pictures of reality that broadly label one group as being a certain way. Stereotypes influence our perception, evaluation, judgment, and memory about individuals and events. People tend to learn stereotypes from the people around them—such as peers and family—or from the media and entertainment. Overcoming stereotypes and working to eliminate bias are continuous processes.
It is essential to learn accurate information about different groups of people (e.g., race, religion, gender) through various ways (e.g., attending cultural events). However, this could reinforce stereotypes. Getting to know others who are different from us is very helpful in counteracting stereotypes, when we care about another person who has different experiences, we want to learn more about who they are which helps to dispel the stereotypes we have grown up with. It is important to remember that different does not mean abnormal or deficient.
To counter negative stereotypes, you can acknowledge you have a bias or stereotype, analyze what manifested it, and then seek out positive examples that cancel out or disprove the negative label. Doing this requires time, openness, and sensitivity. In stereotyping, assumptions are made about a person on the basis of his or her group membership without learning whether the individual fits those assumptions. To avoid stereotyping, we should reflect on our own beliefs about all aspects of child rearing and early childhood education. We must acknowledge our own beliefs and biases about specific groups of people that may be unintentionally communicated to children and families. [229]
Prejudice
Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who are members of an unfamiliar cultural group. Thus, certain types of education, contact, interactions, and building relationships with members of different cultural groups can reduce the tendency toward prejudice