[DOC][DOC] The nature of prejudice

GW Allport, K Clark, T Pettigrew - 1954 - althaschool.org
1954althaschool.org
Man is not born prejudiced; rather, prejudice is learned. By its very nature, prejudice denies
individual human dignity and breaks the fundamental unity among people. Gordon W.
Allport defines prejudice as a hostile attitude or feeling toward a person solely because he
or she belongs to a group to which one has assigned objectionable qualities. Allport
stresses that this hostile attitude is not merely a hasty prejudgment before one knows the
facts. It is a judgment that resists facts and ignores truth and honesty. Thus, prejudice blinds …
Man is not born prejudiced; rather, prejudice is learned. By its very nature, prejudice denies individual human dignity and breaks the fundamental unity among people. Gordon W. Allport defines prejudice as a hostile attitude or feeling toward a person solely because he or she belongs to a group to which one has assigned objectionable qualities. Allport stresses that this hostile attitude is not merely a hasty prejudgment before one knows the facts. It is a judgment that resists facts and ignores truth and honesty. Thus, prejudice blinds one to the facts and creates a kind of poison in a relationship. Although prejudice in daily life is ordinarily a matter of dealing with individual people, it also entails unwarranted ideas concerning a group as a whole. Negative religious, ethnic, or racial prejudice (based on grouping by religion, nationality, or race) is an antipathy based on faulty and inflexible generalization or stereotyping. According to Allport, it may be felt or expressed, and it is directed toward a group as a whole or toward an individual because he or she is a member of that group. Religious, ethnic, or racial prejudice persists for several reasons. Prejudice gives an individual a false sense of identity and self-worth; that is, a person may discriminate against others to make himself feel more powerful and to elevate his own self-esteem. Also, categorization and stereotyping often offer a convenient scapegoat for individual or group problems.
Prejudice, then, is generally the way one thinks or feels about a particular person or group. Discrimination is acting on that negative prejudice. Allport further explains that negative prejudice and discrimination are expressed in escalating levels of violence. These escalating levels of discrimination move from spoken abuse to genocide in the following order:
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