Test Your Knowledge on Discrimination and Prejudice

Attitudes Based on Preconceived Categories:

• Prejudice is an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership.
• Prejudice can be based on any personal characteristic, such as race, gender, religion, sexuality, etc.
• Prejudice can stem from categorical thinking and is a natural and normal process for humans.
• There are various contemporary theories and empirical findings related to prejudice, including the out-group homogeneity effect, the justification-suppression model, the realistic conflict theory, and the integrated threat theory.
• Social dominance theory states that society can be viewed as group-based hierarchies, and dominant groups create prejudiced "legitimizing myths" to justify their position over other groups.
• Prejudice can be a central contributing factor to depression, either as a prejudice victim or due to prejudice against oneself.
• Researchers argue that the study of prejudice has been traditionally too narrow, and the scope of prejudice has begun to expand in research.
• Prejudice can be directed towards any characteristic deemed unusual or undesirable, including gender identity, sexism, nationalism, and classism.
• Transgender and non-binary people can be discriminated against due to their gender identity.
• Sexism affects any gender but is documented as affecting women and girls more often.
• Nationalism is a sentiment based on common cultural characteristics that binds a population, and classism is a biased or discriminatory attitude on distinctions made between social or economic classes.
• There are arguments both for and against the existence of social classes as a natural feature of society.Forms of Discrimination: Sexual, Racial, Religious, Linguistic, and Neurological Discrimination

Sexual Discrimination:

• Homosexuals and bisexuals experience prejudice and stereotypes from the majority group
• Homophobia is a term for intense hatred based on one's sexual orientation
• Heterosexual privilege is a concept that flourishes in society
• Discrimination based on sexual orientation is a powerful feature of many labor markets
• Gay men earn 10-32% less than heterosexual men in the United States

Racism:

• Racism is the belief that physical characteristics determine cultural traits and that racial characteristics make some groups superior
• Scientific racism began to flourish in the eighteenth century and was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin's evolutionary studies
• Racism and other forms of prejudice can affect a person's behavior, thoughts, and feelings

Religious Discrimination:

• Throughout history, there have been wars, pogroms, and other forms of violence motivated by hatred of religious groups
• Researchers have done various studies exploring the relationship between religion and prejudice, thus far receiving mixed results
• Those who practice "institutionalized religion" are more likely to have an increase in prejudice while those who practice "interiorized religion" are most likely to have a decrease in prejudice

Linguistic Discrimination:

• Individuals or groups may be treated unfairly based solely on their use of language
• Linguicism is the ideologies and structures used to "legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language"

Neurological Discrimination:

• High-functioning individuals who do not conform to neurotypical expectations of behavior may be labeled "disabled"
• Low-functioning individuals may have assumptions made about their intelligence or value
• Institutions such as mental asylums, Nazi concentration camps, and eugenics labs have been used to carry out dangerous experiments or to torture individuals involved
• There is a move by some experts to have higher-functioning extremes reclassified as extensions of human personality

Reducing Prejudice:

• The contact hypothesis predicts that prejudice can only be reduced when in-group and out-group members are brought together
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice by enhancing knowledge about the outgroup, reducing anxiety about intergroup contact, and increasing empathy and perspective-taking
• Some individuals confront discrimination when they see it happen