Does the word prejudice come from Latin? Praeiudicium ?, which translates as “preliminary trial”. Prejudice is therefore the act of anticipating, judging things or people without knowing them.
Throughout the day, even without realizing it, we say things that demonstrate our prejudices towards a person, a group of people or a situation.
“Prejudice is the son of ignorance. “
-Willian Hazlitt-
Prejudice is a negative attitude towards something or someone who tends to generalize, presupposes the existence of two consequences:
Prejudices can be of several types: religious, political, racial, gender, etc. , but we can highlight two large groups:
They are due to differences in social position and people’s desire to justify and maintain these differences.
Social prejudice leads us to believe that a man in a suit and tie is more reliable than a beggar. Our brain records this information, whether true or not.
These are prejudices created by people’s skin color
A group of Psychologists at New York University, led by Elisabeth Phelps, conducted a study and found that many people make decisions based on unconscious racial prejudice.
The study was conducted with about 50 people of different races who intuitively analyzed the reliability of people of different races through more than 300 photos, on a scale of 01 to 09.
This study showed that each person’s reliability depends on race. These unconscious prejudices, Phelps says, come into play when we quickly evaluate a stranger we have no information about.
Prejudice has a number of characteristics that are
They have adverse effects because it is an evaluation of a particular group, based on insufficient or incomplete information; in this case, the sesagging behavior may not be appropriate.
Prejudice is a way of interpreting reality, but based on incorrect or incomplete information, prejudice often persists even though the person receives all the right information.
Prejudice is very difficult to eliminate because people believe in its veracity. This belief that this is true prevents change.
A good recipe for survival and being happy is to take down prejudice every day.
How can we do that? Here are some tips
Before you talk or think about someone, try to get to know them better. You may be positively surprised if you give it a try. We often learn more about differences than about similarities.
If you don’t like to be criticized for no reason by people who don’t know you, don’t do it with others, respect people the same way you want them to respect you.
Think about how the other person feels and put yourself in their place, we don’t know anything about your life and we draw conclusions without having enough information, listen carefully and take the opportunity to understand and meet other people.
Think about what you think of people in certain groups or races and commit to change.
Enjoy diversity and learn from differences. Diversity enriches us as individuals.
The more we meet different people, the more knowledge we acquire. We can exchange ideas on different topics, perhaps even on topics that we do not know.
It is impossible for us and others to understand or share everything, because each group has its own customs, the important thing is not to understand, but to accept the differences.
Is it easier to disintegrate an atom than to break a prejudice?
-Albert Einstein-