People often form judgments and hold expectations about people based on their age. These judgments and expectations can lead to ageism , or prejudice and discrimination toward individuals based solely on their age.
Typically, ageism occurs against older adults, but ageism also can occur toward younger adults. Think of expectations you hold for older adults. Ageism is widespread in U. Some cultures, however, including some Asian, Latino, and African American cultures, both outside and within the United States afford older adults respect and honor.
Ageism can also occur toward younger adults. What expectations do you hold toward younger people? Does society expect younger adults to be immature and irresponsible? How might these two forms of ageism affect a younger and older adult who are applying for a sales clerk position? Another form of prejudice is homophobia : prejudice and discrimination of individuals based solely on their sexual orientation.
Like ageism, homophobia is a widespread prejudice in U. Negative feelings often result in discrimination, such as the exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender LGBT people from social groups and the avoidance of LGBT neighbors and co-workers. This discrimination also extends to employers deliberately declining to hire qualified LGBT job applicants. Have you experienced or witnessed homophobia? If so, what stereotypes, prejudiced attitudes, and discrimination were evident?
Some people are quite passionate in their hatred for nonheterosexuals in our society. This passionate response has led some researchers to question what motives might exist for homophobic people. In this experiment, male college students were given a scale that assessed how homophobic they were; those with extreme scores were recruited to participate in the experiment. In the end, 64 men agreed to participate and were split into 2 groups: homophobic men and nonhomophobic men.
Both groups of men were fitted with a penile plethysmograph, an instrument that measures changes in blood flow to the penis and serves as an objective measurement of sexual arousal. All men were shown segments of sexually explicit videos. One of these videos involved a sexual interaction between a man and a woman heterosexual clip. One video displayed two females engaged in a sexual interaction homosexual female clip , and the final video displayed two men engaged in a sexual interaction homosexual male clip.
Changes in penile tumescence were recorded during all three clips, and a subjective measurement of sexual arousal was also obtained. While both groups of men became sexually aroused to the heterosexual and female homosexual video clips, only those men who were identified as homophobic showed sexual arousal to the homosexual male video clip.
While all men reported that their erections indicated arousal for the heterosexual and female homosexual clips, the homophobic men indicated that they were not sexually aroused despite their erections to the male homosexual clips.
Adams et al. Prejudice and discrimination persist in society due to social learning and conformity to social norms. If certain types of prejudice and discrimination are acceptable in a society, there may be normative pressures to conform and share those prejudiced beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. For example, public and private schools are still somewhat segregated by social class.
Historically, only children from wealthy families could afford to attend private schools, whereas children from middle- and low-income families typically attended public schools. If a child from a low-income family received a merit scholarship to attend a private school, how might the child be treated by classmates? Can you recall a time when you held prejudiced attitudes or beliefs or acted in a discriminatory manner because your group of friends expected you to?
When we hold a stereotype about a person, we have expectations that he or she will fulfill that stereotype. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true.
When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations. This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs.
Pettigrew, T. Regional differences in anti-Negro prejudice. Journal of abnormal psychology , 59 1 , Rogers, C. Racial themes in Southern Rhodesia: the attitudes and behavior of the white population p. New Haven: Yale University Press. Toggle navigation.
For example, a person may hold prejudiced views towards a certain race or gender etc. Racial Discrimination. Age Discrimination. This is a type of discrimination against a person or group on the grounds of age.
Gender Discrimination. Attitudes towards migrants often become more negative in periods of economic insecurity or following large waves of immigration. The misperceptions that most often lead to negative attitudes include that migrants take away jobs from natives or they commit illegal acts, among others. Persistent exposure to discrimination can lead individuals to internalize the prejudice or stigma that is directed against them, manifesting in shame, low self-esteem, fear and stress, as well as poor health.
By imagining themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people's actions. Other techniques that are used to reduce prejudice include:.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Allport GW. The Nature of Prejudice.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Published December 19, Fiske ST. Interdependence Reduces Prejudice and Stereotyping. In Oskamp S, ed. Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; ; Linville PW. The Heterogeneity of Homogeneity. Plous, S. Plous Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
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