Prejudice

In our society we’ve created our own ingroup and outgroup, meaning that we socially divide ourselves “through our social identities we associate ourselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves with others” (549). We “mentally draw a circle that defines “us” (the ingroup) excludes “them” (the outgroup). Such group identifications typically promote an ingroup bias-a favoring of one’s own group” (549). This is kind of like high school with their cliques of jocks, nerds, asians, and so on they separate by section of the school. After being there for one day you learn the segregation of tables, hallways, and classrooms. We learned the rules and thoughts of others, self teaching stereotypes and supporting the assumption people put on our shoulders.

“Following 9/11, some outraged people lashed out at innocent Arab-Americans, about whom negative stereotypes blossomed… That year people let their prejudice express anger. When things go wrong, finding someone to blame can provide a target, a scapegoat, for one’s anger.” (Exploring Psychology 549). I had a friend who was Muslim and her family owned a small Arabic market in Fremont, CA. one night some high school students threw rocks and other object at the store breaking their windows and some went as far as going inside the store to sabotage it. This just supports how ignorant Americans became after 9/11, blaming innocent people just for their ethnic background. People shouldn’t distribute hate on another merely for accident of birth into a culture, but by their character.

“’Fear and anger create aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or race creates racism and, in turn, new forms of terrorism…’”(Exploring Psychology 550). Throughout our country people have developed hate and only by false beliefs such as 9/11 and the war. “Evidence for this scapegoat theory of prejudice comes from high prejudice levels among economically frustrated people and from experiments in which a temporary frustration intensifies prejudice“ (Exploring Psychology 550). The people of our country have built this up from the ground up.

There’s a section in our text about prejudice I learned to understand the passage that says, “To boost our own sense of status, it helps to have others to denigrate” (Exploring Psychology 550). Which is true when u think about it. We have these stereotypes in high school where there’s a popular group, but there’s always that one girl that’s either labeled as ugly, nerdy, or outcast but is included in the group to make the others feel more confident for themselves. These are the people I’d prefer to stay away from. Prejudice is all around us, but to be included in the process of it, I’d prefer not to be.

Prejudice is a powerful thing and if used directly as a negative choice, it could cause a lot of harm. People use prejudice to lead to hate crimes and out casting people from social circles, but we all can’t let it get to us. An accident of birth into a culture, gender, or even mental state can’t make is the person we are, but its the character we develop from within. So basically the best thing to do is live life the way we want and let the positives drive us.