In society, today people have solely relied on prejudices to determine their attitudes and social status of certain groups of people. There are many factors that contribute to why people form prejudice ideas. These factors include a specific outgroup, the beliefs people have of that outgroup, and the emotions that occur when thinking or interacting with that group. This is all the factors that have lead people to treat others in society in a different manner.
Many people form prejudice ideas toward a specific group in society and use this attitude as a basis of their interaction. The specific outgroup that I have formed prejudice ideas about are the elderly. This specific outgroup has caused me to have consciously held awareness of my prejudicial
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The first belief that I formed about the elderly is that as they get older, they tend to get more set in their ways. The next belief that I have about the elderly outgroup is that they can be a burden because of their non- ability to be able to do tasks necessary for daily living. My beliefs toward the elderly can be classified as one of the three forms of prejudice based on a group’s relationship with mainstream society. Paternalistic Prejudice is categorized as the disrespect, condescension, elderly, disabled and traditional women. Although this form of prejudice contributes to society, they are seen with low social status and often others feel like they must take care of them. Through this form of prejudice, I have found that my beliefs can fit directly under this category. These beliefs about a certain outgroup also bring out the thoughts and emotions people can have when they experience an interaction with the …show more content…
My prejudice came from the social influence of others through conformity. My ingroup helped to maintain my prejudice beliefs of the elderly through social norms. Social norms caused me to stay within the standards of the ingroup and behave in the way expected. So, I may have prejudices against the elderly believing that I am more physically capable than them, but to stay within my ingroups social norms I must feel obligated to help them with any task at hand to maintain the groups standards. I think that there was a normative social influence involved. Normative Influence has me conform to gain rewards or avoid punishment from another person or group. Through normative influence I feel the need to have these thoughts and feelings about the elderly that some of my peers have for me to maintain a place in my ingroup and avoid any punishment or criticism they have. This prejudice was not required as part of the group membership, but I feel like it was
Prejudice is an issue that cannot be easily avoided in today's society. It has and always will have a huge impact on the discrimination that some people face based on religion, appearance, background, mental/physical disabilities and etc.
Some people say prejudice is part of human nature. Others think we learn it from our elders. Either one could be true, as there are various controversial beliefs about why prejudice exists in the world. One interesting theory is that prejudice is an emotional reaction that is triggered in our brain whenever we encounter unknown people, who have different physical characteristics, different personalities, and/or different beliefs. In fact, these unfamiliar people scare us, and we start treating them differently to reassure ourselves that they cannot possibly matter to us. Another possible reason for prejudice could be negative education about others, either direct or indirect. An example of the direct type would be that you are deliberately taught to avoid certain people who are discriminate...
If a person has an explicit negative outlook toward a specific group or holds prejudicial feelings, more than likely their implicit attitude would also be the same. In turn someone holding these views would have a biased opinion against such a group or person and would discriminate against someone of said group for no reason other than they are a part of the group.
Working with the elderly and people with memory problems of all social classes made me realised that, there is a problem a cognitive belief, stereotyping and discrimination.
Prejudices shape our perceptions of various people and influence our attitudes and actions toward particular groups and prejudicial attitudes that are negative often lead to hostile relations between domi...
The idea that people from majority groups think that they are not prejudiced is a concept known as colorblind ideology. This means that people who claim they are color-blind do not see “color” or race in any way. Many people in hiring positions or college admission claim to take on a color-blindness approach (Richeson and Nussbaum 2003). However, social psychologists would say that implementing the idea of colorblindness is not an effective approach. In order to help in eliminating prejudices actions and thoughts, people need to be aware about their thoughts and actions, even the ones in the subconscious. Adopting the color-blindness thought processes hinders from this progress being made. Especially since, much of the racism that occurs today is known as implicit racism or aversive racism. People from the dominant groups, when given notions about racism, think about it in an overt kind of manner. Overt racism is the idea that
A stereotype is defined as ‘an exaggerated and often prejudiced view of a type of person or group of people’ (Novak, Campbell, & Northcott, 2014, pg. 5). Stereotypes often develop from observations/information that tend to not be true. If they turn out to be true then they are exaggerated and distorted. Further, if someone is found who does not fit the stereotype they are considered to be an exception. Some stereotypes positively portray the elderly but most have a negative impact. This can create prejudice and discrimination towards the elderly which can negatively impact their quality of life (Novac et al., 2014).
Racism and prejudice have always existed in human history. Being a taboo subject and a controversial topic, many persons have tried to explain and find the reason to such human behavior towards another group of people. Such researches are the hope of many to see the racial discrimination ending. Vincent N. Parillo, through his essay "Causes of Prejudice" tries to explain the reasons of racism and discrimination in the U.S. Parillo divides his essay in two parts, one for the psychological causes and one for the social reasons. In the first part, Parillo cites the main psychological causes as: levels of prejudices (cognitive, emotional and action-oriented), self-justification, personality and frustration. In the second part he deals with the social reasons which are: socialization, economic competition and social norms. For each cause he gives strong arguments based on historical facts or even actual facts and statistics which made his essay reliable.
Stereotypes that are associated with a group of older individuals might consist of this particular group being less productive than younger workers within the workplace because of the label attached to their age group. Other aspects that are associated with this group is that they are susceptible to contracting Alzheimer’s disease and they are “boring” or “forgetful”, I feel as though this is the most common stereotype. It is quite unfortunate that this type of discrimination still persists. Though, no act of discrimination should exist or be justified. It is evident that one will follow a social cue to fit in with individuals of a certain group. Author Schaefer mentions that social circumstances provide cues for a person’s attitudes. (Schaefer, 2015. Pg. 38). This notion influences others to act in a particular manner in order to receive a positive or negative reaction from individuals in their proximity. These reactions result from acts or expressions of prejudice. The normative approach, a theory of prejudice, is an exemplification of
Ageism for the purpose of this discussion will refer to stereotyping, discriminatory and oppressive practices towards the older population, those individuals over age fifty. Public policy, health careers, and social programs within contextual framework of our society’s norms are influenced by negative attitudes towards aging. The definition of ageism is, “stereotypes which are generalized beliefs or opinions based in individual experience, often produced by irrational thinking. Stereotyping whether direct or subtle is usually inaccurate, emotional impressions, and not based on objective information” (Hillier & Barrow, 2011, p.32). Some stereotypes are older people are poor, unhealthy, and unable to learn new technology.
Prejudice can be caused because of various reasons. Religion, ethnic race and social status are examples of causes of prejudice. Sometimes prejudice is caused by how we are raised. Many times parents pass on prejudice beliefs to their children. A lot people raised in the southern part of the country are prejudice against blacks. In the early to mid 1960’s, prejudice was alive and well in the south. Blacks had their own bathrooms and were forced to ride in the back of city busses. It’s hard to believe that was doing on only 40 years ago. A lot of Middle Eastern countries are very prejudice against women.
For a large portion of my life, I was under the impression that the majority of stereotypes and myths about older adults were true because I was submerged with that type of message in everyday situations such as seeing older adults being portrayed in a stereotypical way in the media. In the very beginning of the course, I learned what the differences between stereotypes and myths were which was very helpful. While interacting with people in my discussion group a fellow student explained that elderly people are seen as a burden on society because they are generalized in a sense that they do not contribute to society, which is not true because older adults contribute in ways in which they may not be paid for (John Doe, personal communication, 2017). After hearing that statement, I began to think about the many contributions that older adults are not given credit for, such as; charity work, child care for their family, house work and many more activities. Aside from that example, I used to generalize the older population because I have witnessed some traits that were present in an older adult and because of this one particular incident that matches the negative stereotypes that were expressed by society I generalized a group of people which is not a fair
If a young girl is walking alone through a park late at night and encounters three senior citizens walking with canes and three teenage boys wearing leather jackets, it is likely that she will feel threatened by the latter and not the former. Why is this so? To start off, we have made a generalization in each case. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Often, these stereotypical generalizations are not accurate. We are succumbing to prejudice by ?ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without knowledge of the total facts?1.
... that when an older person believes in the negative stereotype of aging, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children as young as six years of age are already indoctrinated with these false attitudes. Studies further show a link between early life attitudes toward aging and incidences of health issues in those same individuals as they aged. The author suggests that people are internalizing stereotypes of old age when they are still quite young. This is the first scientific look at people maturing into the very people they have been unkindly stereotyping. It is a field that shows great promise in changing long overdue attitudes and stereotyping of our senior population.
Discrimination towards the elderly community is constantly being tolerated across the world. A definition of age discrimination can simply be put into terms as; stereotyping and discriminating against a certain individual or group of people based upon their age. Which can also be classified as ageism: defined as the prejudice against older individuals that can lead into age discrimination.The elderly community is one common group of people that are constantly being put under discrimination because of their age. Stereotypes are common at every level: in the family, in the community, in the workplace and most commonly in society. Ageism and age discrimination can be portrayed differently but remain common and prevalent throughout society. Discrimination in old age is not only based on old age alone, but can more likely based on multiple factors.This discrimination will manifest itself differently in different social, economic and cultural contexts but often is unrecognized and accepted.