Prejudice and Stereotypes Essay

Everyone has dealt with being treated as an outcast at some point in their lives. Everyone has had an incident when we have been treated unfairly. Discrimination because of prejudice and stereotyping is one of the main problems that we must face in an ethnically and culture diverse world. Considering these beliefs and the means behind these actions may essentially help us be a step closer to resolving this social injustice. â€Å"Prejudice involves a negative attitude toward individuals based on their membership in a particular group†, (Feenstra, J.(2011). Prejudice takes place when a person has negative views about someone even if they do not have the complete background on the individual or group of people. Prejudice is mostly caused by a particular stereotype made about a person or group. A stereotype is â€Å"a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people† (Cardwell, 1996). People make stereotypes by making generalizations such as females should only cook, clean and raise children. Or all Americans t are greedy, or all African Americans steal. â€Å"Discrimination refers to the treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit†( uslegal,2012).? An â€Å"ingroup† is a group to which someone belongs, and an â€Å"outgroup† is a group to which the person does not belong (hence, one person’s ingroup may be another person’s outgroup, and vice versa), â€Å"(Linville, 1998). On a personal level, I can relate to being placed in a stereotype. I can remember a time where I went to get my car fixed at a particular car shop. I could actually tell I was being treated different because I am a female. I think because they figured I was a woman I would not know about cars so the mechanic told me things were wrong with my car that were not actually wrong with it. I can also say I have discriminated against a certain group especially after 911. I would be scared to ride a plane if I saw someone from the Muslim community aboard the plane which I can see now it was a totally false accusation of mine. I had to realize just because there was one bad apple that decided to do such a horrific act everyone in that community was not that way. Society confirms prejudicial attitudes by focusing on personal differences such as ones nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation or their beliefs such as religion. Society seems to confirm it because people really don’t do anything to stop it. It seems that some prejudices are highly accepted in society. Individuals in society seem to accept some prejudices as opposed to being a team with your fellow neighbor, friend or coworker. One’s social identity contributes to prejudice based on the awareness of inadequate social control. One’s social identity contributes to prejudice because people in today’s society seem to have their own set of stereo types against other races, nationalities and genders. Some people associate certain actions or characteristics to a particular group. An example may be some people may think a woman should ever has a job as a mechanic and that should only be a man’s job, or think that a woman’s place is at home cooking , cleaning and raising the children. Another stereo type may be that all people from Iraq are violent and hate Americans. The more you have faith in that you can influence your surroundings or social status, the less of an influence social identity plays. Emotions encourage prejudicial attitudes because the majority of the time individuals make decisions from their emotions. The cognitive processes influence prejudice because cognitive thinking is the mental result of one’s opinion, learning and reasoning process. Discrimination is very prevalent, there are ways to improve our feelings, judgments and behaviors so that we are more accepting of individuals whom we view to be diverse from us. There are laws against discrimination such as the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Laws. These laws â€Å"prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or old, (www.eeoc. gov, 2009) Differences will always be around but it will be our outlooks and behaviors concerning these issues that will make a difference. I think the way to beat discrimination if everyone were to just open their minds and get to know one another as their equal.