The Causes of Prejudice

What are the causes of prejudice? Prejudice is an unreasonable and unfair dislike of, or preference for, a particular type of person or thing. This way of thinking was believed, to have been passed down from the previous generations to us through preconceived thoughts. However, in recent times it has been revealed that, this generation and the future generations have mind-sets of their own, base upon their own careful analysis and perception on matters of conflict or interest. Some of the causes of prejudice are as follows: ignorance, environment, religion and jealousy. First, ignorance is a state of not knowing. If one does not know about someone or something, how can one prejudge? For instance, one may have knowledge about the Human Immune Virus (HIV) and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and how it is contracted. On the other hand, one may not know the circumstances under which a person may have contracted the disease, it could of been, an honest mistake by a Medical Doctor, bought into the home by an unfaithful spouse or two people having been in an accident and both of them badly wounded, one may have the virus and their blood intermingle and the other one contract’s the disease. Even so, Medical history has proven that one cannot contract AIDS or HIV unless one is in direct contact with a person who has the disease. Moreover, one can be prejudice towards a person, especially without proper information. Next, environment is a factor of prejudice, it is said to be the conditions in which one lives or works. If one is from the middle or upper class society, one will not want to work or live with the lower class citizens. This will make one feel inferior, and it will also cause conflict within one’s consortium, thus causing intolerance to escalate. In addition, much ability to get along with the people with whom one work is covered, if one can master anger-management, conflict-resolution, communication skills and other types of