Social Biases

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The Impact of Bias on Individuals

“People from most groups subject stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination can still feel good about themselves and their groups, precisely as social identity theory would argue” (Fiske, 2010, p. 469). One faces trials of sustaining his or her identity as belonging to a group devaluated by society. Members of racial and ethnic minorities may suffer from low self-esteem. The impact of the biases can hinder one’s health, for example, depression, anxiety, and stress. One can have a sense of not belonging because one is being overlooked or followed around the store whereas he or she is shopping.

Strategies Used to Overcome Social Biases

If groups come together and work toward assisting one another on common ground, they will come to the realization that both are beneficial to one another and reduce the prejudice. “Contact diversifies people’s friendships, which in turn generalizes to more positive feelings about a variety of out groups (Pettigrew, 1997) (Fiske, 2010, p. 476). Multicultural and multiracial friendships represent the intersection of interpersonal and intergroup relations” (Gaines & Liu, 2000). One should be more passionate about getting to know others outside his or her group. Outgroup placement contains wanting to meet others, become acquainted with, and hang out with people from other ethnic groups (Wittig & Molina, 2000) (Fiske, 2010, p. 476).

Conclusion

Social biases reflect as an issue in society because it entails one group looking down on an individual or a group of individuals because that particular group believes to be superior to the other individual or group. Collectively, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination all are biases because treating the individual as an exact representation of the group is never accurate. Most people hold prejudices are subtler than the kinds of blatant prejudices we usually imagine. People from most groups subject stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination can still feel good about themselves and their groups, precisely as social identity theory would argue. If groups come together and work toward assisting one another on common ground, they will come to the realization that both are beneficial to one another and reduce the prejudice.

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Reference

Fiske, S.T. (2010). Social Beings: Core motives in Social Psychology (2nded.).Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Gaines, S. O., Jr., & Liu, J. H. (2000). Multicultural/multiracial relationships. In C.

Hendrick & S. S. Henrick (Eds.), Close relationships: A sourcebook (pp. 97–108).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Jost, J. T., & Major, B. (Eds.) (2001). The psychology of legitimacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Pettigrew, T. F. (1997). Generalized intergroup contact effects of prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23 , 173–185.

Renata, R. (2011). The Different types of Prejudice. Retrieved July 03, 2011 from http://www.ehow.com

Wittig, M. A., & Molina, L. (2000). Moderators and mediators of prejudice reduction in multicultural education. In S. Oskamp (Ed.), Reducing prejudice and discrimination. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.