Breaking A Prejudice A Day, The Best Recipe To Survive
Throughout the day, and without being aware of it, we speak and say things that denote our prejudices towards a person, a group of people or a situation. The word prejudice comes from the Latin “praeiudicium” which translates as “prior judgment.” Therefore, prejudice is the action of prejudging, judging things or people without knowing them.
Prejudice is a habitually negative attitude towards something or someone, which tends to generalize. It assumes the existence of two consequences:
- A cognitive schema is created that makes us order information incorrectly.
- Not only does it create negative evaluations, but it also generates negative emotions
Types of prejudice
Prejudices can be very diverse: religious, political, racial, gender, etc. But we can highlight two large groups:
Social prejudices
They arise from differences in social position and people’s desire to justify and maintain those differences. Social prejudice makes people believe that a man in a suit and tie is more trustworthy than a homeless man. That information remains in our brain, regardless of whether it is true or not.
Racial prejudice
They are those that derive from the color of people’s skin. A group of New York University psychologists, led by Elisabeth Phelps, conducted a study and found that many people make decisions based on unconscious racial prejudice.
In the study, 50 people of various races were asked to intuitively rate the reliability of individuals of different races represented in more than 300 photographs, on a scale of 1 to 9.
Characteristics of prejudices
Prejudices have a series of characteristics that are the following. We are going to see those that are more frequent and with which you surely coincide:
- They have harmful effects : since it is a value judgment on a group based on insufficient or incomplete information. On this basis, prejudicial behavior may not be appropriate.
- They are based on a distorted view of reality : prejudices are a way of interpreting reality but they are based on incorrect or incomplete information. Sometimes the prejudice persists despite having all the information.
- They imply resistance to change : prejudices are very difficult to eliminate, since people believe in their truthfulness. That conviction that it is real prevents change.
Break a prejudice a day!
A very good recipe to survive and be happier is: break a prejudice every day. How can we do it? We propose some tips for this:
1. Take your time to get to know people
Before saying or thinking something about a person, take the time to get to know them well, to find out who they are. It might surprise you in a positive way if you give it a try. Many times more is learned from differences than from equalities.
2. Do not do to others what you do not like to be done to you
If you don’t like being criticized for no reason and without knowing you, don’t do it with other people. Respect others as you want them to respect you.
3. Develop empathy
Think about how the other person is feeling and put yourself in their shoes. We do not know what life others have had and many times we reach conclusions without having enough information. Listen carefully and enjoy the possibility of understanding and meeting other people.
4. Discover your biases and commit to change
Reflect on what you think of people who belong to certain groups or races and commit to change. Appreciate diversity and learn from differences. Diversity enriches us as people.
The more different people we know, the more points of view we will have and the more ideas they will give us on topics that we may not know or know partially.
5. Accept the differences
It is impossible for you to understand or share everything, because each group has its customs, but maybe another person from another group does not understand your customs. The important thing is not to understand, but to accept the differences.
