Prejudice And Discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination

BUE ID: 120921 QM ID: 12011189
Module Name: Social Psychology (Humanities 3)
Module Code: N3597
Module Coordinator: Prof/ Cheherezade Ghazi
Number of used words: 1920
Submission Date: 26-1-2014

Out-lines:
Introduction
Definition
Theoretical background
Types of Prejudice
Religious prejudice
How we can reduce prejudice?
Conclusion
References

Introduction Prejudice is a serious matter can be noticed in many situations in our daily life through interacting and observing the human’s attitude and behavior. Prejudice in many times is due to stereotyping; forming or sharing general beliefs, traits, and concepts about social groups of people and their members. Prejudice may be positive or negative depending on the beliefs and concepts which people formed about specific group or members. Prejudice and stereotypes of specific group are always due to their religious, racial, sex, ethnic, age, disabilities, etc. The stereotypes comes from people prejudgments or making a quick thoughts, perceptions and concepts about individuals due to their membership in specific group not due to their personal characteristics because the human mind needs to classify items or people into different groups to make it easy to deal with them as a result they treats the whole group in a similar way although the huge personal differences among the members of the same class and then developing prejudice or may leads to discrimination. The choice of the prejudice to be my assignment because we as nurses deal and interact with most of people from different societies, classes, and different cultures so we have to know well the prejudice and discrimination to avoid it because we have to deal with all people as a human being and do not make differences between people as a result of their belonging or group membership.
(Feldman, 2005. Cheery, 2013. Mcleod, 2008. Plous, 2003).
Definitions:
Prejudice is an inaccurate or non evidence based thoughts, beliefs, and feelings which always are negative directed to certain group members due to their membership to a certain social group not based on their personal characteristics. (Mcleod, 2008).
Discrimination is a behavior which depends mainly on special issues as race, sex, color, religion or social class which reflects negativley on the basics of human interacion when dealing with paricular person or group of people. (Mcleod, 2008).
Theoretical background: There are three general waves of study revealing different hypothesis and theories in the social psychological study of social prejudice.

I. The first wave was during the period between 1920s to 1950s, prejudice was described as psychopathology. Research then focused initially on describing and assessing the problem and monitoring any changes (e.g., Katz & Braly,1933; Gilbert, 1951), then to know and understand the cause of the problem (e.g., Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, E.,Levinson, et al., 1950). This wave was criticized by researchers because it had not been measured properly, it did not account for cultural and regional differences in prejudice. Theories examples to this wave: The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, E.,Levinson, et al., 1950), Freudian psychodynamic theory (Allport, 1954). (John F. Dovidio & Miles Hewstone & Peter Glick & Victoria M. Esses, 2011)
II. The second wave and also called the cognitive revolution in psychology: Through the 1970s and 1980s, Fiske &Taylor, 1984 focused on how stereotyping and prejudice comes from cognitive processes, and considered that Prejudice is embedded in normal processes. In the 1970s Social psychology focused on the person in a social environment by 2 approaches. The first one showed the importance of individual identity and social identity in developing prejudice (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). The second approach hypothesized that social categorization is an important component in this process (Hamilton & Trolier, 1986). Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination were considered as results of usual cognitive processes in addition to categorizing the great and complex mass of information which people meet daily. Researchers then turned consequently to examine prejudice between the well-intended and to the obvious difference between self-reported attitudes, and the persistence evidence of inequalities and discrimination (e.g., Gaertner &Dovidio, 1986). This wave was criticized because social norms change through time, so this cannot explain prejudice as whole but it can only go some way towards explaining prejudice. Theories examples to this wave: Realistic Group Conflict Theory (Campbell, 1965;Sherif, 1966), Social Identity Theory (Tajfel &Turner, 1979). (John F. Dovidio & Miles Hewstone & Peter Glick & Victoria M. Esses, 2011)
III. The third wave: Started in the mid-1990s with new theoretical view. It enabled researchers to evaluate hidden beliefs and attitudes by using new technologies which allows the assessment of clear or hidden individual differences, racial attitudes, and help differentiate modern or aversive racists, traditional racists, and the actually no prejudiced people (e.g., Greenwald &Banaji, 1995) and technologies (e.g., response latency procedures; Dovidio & Fazio, 1992; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998).These methods give a chance for growing ways to fight subtle types of prejudice. This wave focused on how targets react and adjust, and how prejudice clarify in interactions among targets and perceivers by considering the intergroup and interpersonal context in contrast, the prior research concentrated mainly on the attitudes of perceivers and how it influenced their behavior and decisions. Theories examples to this wave Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996, 1998), Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius &Pratto, 1999). (John F. Dovidio & Miles Hewstone & Peter Glick & Victoria M. Esses, 2011)
Types of Prejudice There are many types of prejudice based on many factors as race, age, sex, nationality, religions, and also socioeconomic state. The most familiar types of prejudice are:
Sexism
Racism
Religious prejudice
Classicism
Nationalism
Homophobia
Ageism (Cherry, 2013)
Religious prejudice: In recent days we have a lot of events rich with religious prejudice in Egypt, there are a lot of attacks which represent or consider as an evidence for the influenced attitude towered specific group or its members due to their Religious affiliation. The most popular situations or cases that characterized the religious prejudice are that:
The first case: The attacks which targeted the Christians and churches in Egypt, there are a lot of continuous and intended attacks where the Christians are exposed to over years. The most popular attacks since 2010; burning a church in Aswan in the town of Marinab, where Christians had wanted to convert a separate guesthouse into a church, this attack causes deadly clashes more than fifty times in 2008 and 2009, explosion the Two Saints Church in Alexandria at the start of the new year of 2011 where killed 23 people and injured about 100 during the ceremony of the liturgy, in May of the same year 2011, a mob burned a church in the Imbaba neighborhood, causing death of 15 people and 242 wounded, and a lot of attacks after the June 30,2013 events which ending by explosions of El Waraqe church in October 23, 2013. (Hill, 2011)
Analysis
These attacks are considered a harmful or negative action toward the Christians or their belongings. The most of attacks are due to competitions about things regarding to religious benefits as when they wanted to convert a separate guesthouse into a church in Aswan. These competitions influenced the prejudice and discrimination toward them and develop the in-group and out-group competition which register prejudice and discrimination in these harmful actions and behavior. The second case: The killing process which targeted four of the Egyptians Shiites and five others were wounded and dragged after the assault during the attack in the village of Abu Muslim angle in Giza Governorate in June 23, 2013. The attack was While the collection of 34 of Shiites in Hassan Shehata’s home, who is one of the most prominent Shiite figures in Egypt’ by some villagers. Especially after the visit of the Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in August, 2012 to Iran which considered The Shiites Bastion, after a rally for the Islamists for supporting Syria in the presence of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, one of the Salafist movement leaders, Sheikh Mohammed Abdel-Maksoud spoke describing the Shiites as a bad people, and then the spread of salafists distribution of publications and brochures that warning from the danger of Shiites and try to disseminate their doctrine in Egypt. (Sky News Arabia, 2013)

Analysis In Egypt Shiites and their doctrine are considered refused among the Egyptiens people. So the Egyptiens already prejudiced the Shiites and this prejudice enhanced by one of the leaders of the Salafist movement and by publications which warning from the danger of Shiites then they made a ceremony of grouped wedding in the most prominent Shiite’s home which Provoked the villagers and developing the negative and harmful actions toward them.
The third case: The final situation is about the Muslim Brotherhood which also exposed to prejudice, on its beginning they used to operate and work as a secretive movement and its members had been arrested and poisoned frequently . The prejudice became clear nowadays particularly after deposition of president Mohamed Morsi in the third of July 2013, after the anti-terror law, and finally announcement Brotherhood terrorist group by the government more than 1,000 have been killed, thousands have been arrested, and the transition government provides hotlines for citizens to report anyone whom they suspected of belonging to or having relations with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian media played and still playing important role in stereotyping the Brotherhood by spearheaded a smear camping against brotherhood members. (Kholaif, 2013)
Analysis
The prejudice toward the Muslim Brotherhood is present since its initiation. This prejudice is increasing everyday by the effect of the media where it plays an important role in stereotyping them. This prejudice boosted especially after announcement this group as a terrorist group which make it unwanted group in Egypt. As a result the harmful and negative actions directed toward this group which register the prejudice and discrimination.
How we can reduce prejudice?
Researchers had discovered some theories and ways to diminish prejudice, the most successful one is that teaching people to be more empathetic to members of other groups and thinking about how they would react and get a better understanding of other’s actions by butting themselves in the same situation.
Establish regulations and laws that provide equality and justice for all groups of people.
Increase awareness and provide public support for anti prejudice social norms.
Increase a certain kinds of contact between people or members of other groups as contact between individuals of equal state and cooperate with or dependant on one another.
Provide intervention programs to teach minorities group members about their susceptibility to stereotypes and show that the stereotypes are inaccurate.
Applying methods like jigsaw technique; it is a game between the participant members where each one take a small amount of information and responsible for teach it to other participants and the group required to use all the individual pieces to solve the problem. This technique develops understanding and enhances interaction between members of other groups. This approach is more effective with college classrooms. (Wood, 2011)
Conclusion
In sum, prejudice and discrimination caused, emphasized, and maintained by many factors as social categorization, social identity, personality and individual differences, and group conflict. These factors must be well-known to everyone to can avoid it. In other hand, the prejudice is due to the development of the three components of attitude starting by cognitive component which forms a set of believes toward a specific group or its members, through the affective component which carries feelings toward the group, and ends by the behavioral component which is an actions or behaviors which registered by the other two component of attitude and targeted the same group or its members. Prejudice has many types and also causes a low self-stem to those who experienced it so that we have to be familiar with the ways which reduces the prejudice and activate it in proper way to get complete constructive results in order to finite this harmful attitude.

References
1. Arabia, S. N. (2013, June 23). مصر.. قتل 4 أشخاص لـ "انتمائهم الشيعي". Retrieved December 31, 2013, from www.skynewsarabia.com: http://www.skynewsarabia.com/article/304558/%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-4-%D8%A7%D9%94%D8%B4%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5-%D9%84%D9%80-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%94%D9%87%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%B9%D9%8A
2. Cherry, K. (2013). What is prejudice? Retrieved December 30, 2013, from http://psychology.about.com/od/pindex/g/prejudice.htm: psychology.about.com
3. Wood, S. E. (2011).Chapter 17, prejudice and discrimination. In S. E.Wood, The world of psychology 7th ed(pp. 561-564). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
4. Feldman, R. S. (2005). chapter 17 Social Psychology. In Understanding Psychology 7th ed (pp. 621-625). Boston: MC Graw Hill.
5. Hill, E. (2011, October 10). In Egypt, the crisis endures. Retrieved December 30, 2013, from www.aljazeera.com: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/2011101011637894517.html
6. John F. Dovidio & Miles Hewstone & Peter Glick & Victoria M. Esses. (2011, March 31). Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview. Retrieved December 25, 2013, from knowledge.sagepub.com: http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/hdbk_prejudicestereotypediscrim/n1.xml
7. Kholaif, D. (2013, December Sun, 29). Egypt's 'anti-terror' law may add to violence . Retrieved December 31, 2013, from www.aljazeera.com: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/brotherhood-confronts-egypt-anti-terror-law-2013122812912744161.html
8. Mcleod, S. (2008). Prejudice and Discrimination. Retrieved Dec 5, 2013, from www.simplypsychology.org: www.simplypsychology.org/prejudice.html
9. Plous, S. (2003). The Psychology of Prejudice: An Overview. Retrieved 2014, from www.understandingprejudice.org: http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/