First, let's define three concepts: prejudice, stereotype and discrimination.
Prejudice is a preconceived negative attitude. Focus on negative attitudes. For example, if we think someone is bad, this is prejudice.
Stereotype is a belief in other groups, which may be accurate or inaccurate, or too general, but it is based on the core of facts. In other words, stereotypes can be positive or negative. For example. In the eyes of many people, Northeasters tend to be violent. No matter what the family situation is, women in Northeast China always carry tens of thousands of furs with them. We always think that Shandong people are simple, cheerful and enthusiastic. These are stereotypes.
Discrimination is an unreasonable negative behavior. The focus is on behavior.
For example, there is a little girl in the classroom. She is chubby, short, a little ugly and has a low voice. She is wearing a pair of small cloth shoes for 9 yuan. Many students don't want to sit at the same table with this girl, look down on her and think she is too weak. This is prejudice. Some people look at the little girl's clothes and think that her family will be poor. It is possible that her parents are ill all the year round. This is the stereotype. Other boys will occasionally knock a girl on the head, laugh at her and even pinch her, which is discrimination.
However, one day after school, everyone found her on a limousine. As soon as I got to know it, I knew that my parents were engaged in real estate. She dresses like this because she can't take care of her. Many students have changed their attitude towards her and dare not bully her.
There are many prejudices around us, such as racial prejudice. Subtle forms of prejudice, such as playing a game and whether your clothes are suitable or not, will prejudice the judges and thus affect the final score.
Gender bias is even more obvious, and son preference exists almost all over the world. For example, in English address forms, a woman should take her husband's surname after marriage and be called Mrs. * * * *, not Ms. or Miss. Men have never taken the woman's surname after marriage. In ancient times, even if there was a husband, he was often looked down upon by the villagers.
Why are humans biased? The reason for this is the following：
1 social inequality. Unequal status breeds prejudice
2 socialize. Family socialization has an influence on children's prejudice, which is often related to the mother's education.
3. Support from social system. For example, going to the bank for loans, they put forward many preferential policies for employees of public institutions, which is also a prejudice.
And prejudice has a deeper motivation.
1 frustration and attack: scapegoat theory.
When we encounter setbacks because we are timid or don't know, we tend to divert our hostile direction, which is an alternative attack.
2 social identity theory: feel superior to others.
Humans are fascinated by self-confidence and always feel superior. Even ordinary group members will make people like their group more than other groups.
Prejudice also has cognitive roots.
Stereotypes in prejudice become by-products of our thinking. First of all, the practice of classifying people exaggerates the consistency within groups and the differences between groups. Secondly, the occurrence of two unique events helps to establish a false connection between people and behavior. Attributing other people's behavior to internal quality will lead to group service deviation, attributing the negative behavior of external group members to their nature, and avoiding talking about their positive behavior.
What are the consequences of prejudice?
1 Anticipation can guide our attention and memory, and it can also guide our interpretation of events, which fully shows that we live in the world of the brain, which is not the real world, but our distorted attention and memory and interpretation of events.
The influence of discrimination, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Social beliefs can be self-verified, and we can specifically understand "as if it were something" and "Murphy's Law".
3 Stereotype threat.
When we play basketball with a tall young player, we often suspect that they are too strong and deny their ability, which will weaken our self-confidence and affect our performance. This is the stereotype threat. Stereotypes threaten to undermine performance in three ways, one is stress, the other is self-monitoring, and the third is to suppress unnecessary thoughts and emotions.
For example, when we find that the other person is very powerful, we will feel pressure and increase brain activity related to emotional processing; Worried that making mistakes will affect concentration; Adjusting thinking will inevitably consume a person's cognitive resources and interfere with his working memory.
Let me talk about what I feel most after reading this chapter: the theory of social identity-feeling superior.
Turner put forward the theory of social identity. Turner and Tajfel observed the following phenomena:
1 we classify. When expressing someone's affairs, we often label these people;
We agree. Connect yourself with a specific group and gain self-esteem.
3 We compare. We compare our group with other groups and like our group better.
Personal identity and social identity are the same as cultivating self-esteem.
As can be seen from the above figure, a person's self-esteem develops through two aspects, one is personal identity, and the other is social identity, while personal identity develops through personal achievement and self-service, and social unity develops through group achievement and internal group deviation.
First, self-help bias
Individuals tend to be self-intuitive in a way that is beneficial to them. People are always good at attributing success to internal factors, their own efforts, wisdom and ability, while attributing failure to external factors, bad luck, unprepared and so on. This phenomenon is collectively called "self-help bias".
Second, the deviation within the group.
Describe who you are in a group way, such as your religion, race and gender, which also means describing who you are not. We belong to this circle and naturally exclude other circles.
Why does a child feel inferior? No matter how encouraged by others, he always feels that mud and sand can't help the wall, which may be related to self-identity and social identity. If a child feels from the bottom of his heart that he is not excellent, that he is incompetent, that he is not recognized by the people around him, and that he is a burden to others, this person's personal achievement is weak, and the self-service deviation function is particularly weak. He always thinks that bad things are caused by himself and good things are caused by others. Naturally, this person's self-esteem is extremely fragile.
But this man has to live. what should he do ？ At this time, he looked for social identity, found a group, and gained a sense of accomplishment in the group. For example, find a rebellious organization, in which he feels glory and dignity, tolerance and acceptance, he feels happiness, its internal group deviation develops well, and he feels that he is a part of this organization. At this time, he can also cultivate his self-esteem.
There is a saying in the textbook that without positive personal identity, people often gain self-esteem by identifying with a certain group, so many young people seek pride, rights, security and identity by joining gangs. When people's personal identity and social identity are integrated, and the boundaries between self and group become blurred, they will be more willing to fight for the organization and even sacrifice for it.
These words are worth pondering by parents of children who are willing to go out. What makes children's self-identity not develop and can only turn to external groups for help? I'm afraid the answer is clear.