Racism in Modern Society

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Where mental representations are concerned, in modern psychological terms, mental representations of members of different social groups contain enough detail to allow us to know what group members are like without even meeting them (Augoustinos & Reynolds, 2001). As people, we hold mental representations for everyday objects around us. These can be either negative or possible traits and attributes and this can be extended to members of specific groups which can lead to preconceived expectation about certain group behaviour. social psychologists have recently begun to consider stereotypes as mental categories and to use tools developed in cognitive psychology to examine the impact of stereotypes on judgment and behaviours (Augoustinos & Reynolds, 2001). As Freud (1917) determined, very few cognitive processes can be inspected on a conscious level. “it is legitimate to ask people how they think compared to what they think. While learnt judgments can be seen as the precursor for prejudice. “whether you like or dislike a particular social group and its members is open to conscious inspection and it is legitimate to ask someone their feelings towards a group. Of course, whether they will tell you is a different matter (Augoustinos & Reynolds, 2001). The area that is not open for inspection is how these mental representations are acquired, our different thoughts about different groups and our long-term memory that form these representations.

Conclusion

To conclude, when looking at both personality theories and mental representations, it is clear to see that racism is more a product of human nature then a phenomenon that can be controlled. As the research shows, there is no way to control the human want and need to belong to a group meaning that people will always side with their own, and look down on other group members that don’t comply with them. Whereas with mental representations, because the SIT has been an occurring theory for many generations, it is only logical that these ideologies are passed down from one generation to another. That coupled with the fact that gatekeeps also help enforce these prejudices and stereotypes, children grow up with preconceived ideas of the in and out groups. All this comes together to showcase the fact that racism in society is part of human nature and is not something that can be changed because it would mean changing the nature of who we are.

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