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Effects of Cultural Diversity essay
Effects of Cultural Diversity essay
Positive and negative effects of cultural diversity
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As humans, we have a natural tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and ignore contrary evidence. We also fear what we can’t control because dramatic events are readily available to memory and they shape our perceptions of risk. These readily available memories can be stimulated when reminded of a concept that links to the dramatic event. We often form our concept by developing prototypes. Prototypes provide a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories. Unfortunately, prototypes can also be used towards racial discrimination. When we have a prototype of a particular ethnic group we tend to categorize the whole ethnic group to that prototype; although, it might not be a true fact. For example, after the 9’11 incident, people started fearing all Muslims and had the concept of terrorist and the best prototype that matched the concept “terrorist” was Muslim. In this paper I will cover three terms; Prototypes, confirmation bias, and belief perseverance.
Depending on the situation, prototypes can be used as an advantage or disadvantage. The advantage of prototype would be to quickly categorizing items into its beat fit; disadvantage would be using it to discriminate certain racial groups or the inability to match a concept to a certain prototype; for instance, when penguins don’t resemble our bird prototype. Prototype is a mental image or best example of a category (Myers, 2011). For example, In the movie “The Help” ((Columbus, Barnathan, Green, & Taylor, 2011) ), the southern white society have a prototype of a black servant. The society’s concept of a servant (someone who does all the dirty work) fits perfectly with their prototype of a black woman. In the movie, the black maid is in...
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...ategorize items. For instance, when you have symptoms and your symptoms does not match a disease prototype then it’s slower to detect illness (Myers, 2011). On the other hand, Confirmation bias allows you to search for answers that support your belief. Such as, when a student writes a paper then he/she searches for answer that confirms their belief. And belief perseverance makes a person unwilling to admit that their initial premise may not be true. This information is important because now you know that having arguments is useless because both sides are never wrong and they both reject each other’s beliefs.
Works Cited
Myers, D. (2011) Psychology. (10th edition). New York, NY: Worth publishers.
Columbus, C., Barnathan, M., Green, B. (Producer), & Taylor, T. (Director). (2011). The Help [Motion picture]. United States: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Furthermore, the authors aim to unfold the scientific logic of their analysis of the effects of hidden biases so people will be “better able to achieve the alignment,” between their behavior and intentions (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) preface
Both authors have taken the deliberative to uncover the unconscious phenomenon that controls and affects how people interact, make perceptions, assumptions and even decisions in life. Most of these biases that people tend to have against other races are shaped and reinforced by one’s surroundings and experiences. It is therefore important expose these biases so as to grow as a society and extinguish the white privileges. Unless America is ready to face the truth about the existing biases, racial tensions and incidences will continue to
The model measures anxiety and relates them to prejudice. The final threat, Negative Stereotypes,creates a fear of negative consequences. The four threats within the integrated threat theory model are used to predict attitudes towards outgroups. Stephan and Stephan (2000) conducted several studies to test this model. The first study measured how all four types of threat would predict prejudice toward immigrant groups because it is these groups that are usually perceived as real threats to Americans, their values perceived as different from the norm, the anxiety induced from these interactions, and the negative stereotypes Americans harbour towards immigrants. The researchers measured realictic threat through the use of 12 items such as crime, drugs, job loss etc through phrases like: ; Mexicans immigrants are contributing to increase in crime in the U.S.” Symbolic threat was measured by using items to create the impression of perceived differences in values such as work, moral, and religious values, for example “ Mexican immigration is undermining American culture.” Intergroup anxiety was measured through asking participants how they would feel when they interacted with the outgroup. The 12 item scale included feelings such as apprehensiveness, anxiousness, worry and so
Abstract: This curriculum unit will provide elementary school teachers with a framework to begin to help their students understand and define a stereotype. Recognize common stereotypes and stereotypical themes in film and television and illustrate some damaging effects perpetuating stereotypes through behavior. Finally, how to constructively deal with others stereotyping them.
Sherman Alexie’s Flight Patterns, which discusses racial stereotypes, relates to the effects of 9/11 on American citizens, who tend to inappropriately judge Muslim and other cultures in the world today. Although 9/11 was a horrible day, it still should not be used to categorize and stereotype people. Stereotypes do nothing but harm to the people who receive it and to the people who dish it out.
Prejudice is the attitude of conveying negative stereotypes to a particular group, usually known as the out-groups. Usually the stereotypes are generalizations based on superficial opinions, so they have an invalid connotation behind it. Stereotypes in some cases evoke prejudice mindsets, leading to discriminate a certain ethnic group, age group, religion, seuxal orienntation, or body size. Stereotypes are usually socially learned from one’s environment and latched onto the mind of a young child. This could possibly later influence their opinion about something they are not fully educated on. One cannot control what they are taught, but one can control what they do with that information. They can either not believe a word of it or take it into
Assume you’re walking down a street and everywhere you turn you encounter pitch black darkness. You reach a point where you only have two choices; either you go left where there is a group of tattooed muscular black men or you go right where you find a group of well dressed white men. What would you do? Your immediate choice would be to stay clear from the group of black men and that you’d be better off going to the right. What just happened here was that you assumed a certain group of human beings is more likely to cause you harm than the other. From a very young age we start to categorize things in to different groups. We see pencils, pens, erasers and we categorize them in a group and call them ‘stationery’. Similarly we tend to categorize human beings in to different groups and associate certain behaviors or traits with these groups. We have this urge to categorize because it makes us ‘cognitively effective’. When we categorize, we no longer need to consider information about each member of the group; we assume that what holds true for some members must also be true for other members of the group. The act of categorizing human beings is known as stereotyping. The word stereotype has Greek roots; ‘stereos’ meaning firm and ‘typos’ meaning impression hence, ‘Firm Impression’. The word itself implies that we associate certain ‘impressions’ with a group and hold these impressions to be true for most if not each member of the group. Although many leading sociologists and psychologists will have us believe that stereotypes are firmly grounded in reality, the truth is stereotypes exist only because we allow them to; we cause their existence and ultimately perpetuate them because in reality stereotypes are nothing but mere logical fal...
A primary framework for analyzing the relationship between Muslim-Americans and White-Americans is Intergroup Threat Theory. This theory designates two types of threat, realistic and symbolic (Stephan, Ybarra, and Morrison, 2009). Realistic threats challenge the group’s ability to exist. For example realistic threats may involve job loss, deprivation of material resources, injury and death. Symbolic threats however challenge the group’s way of life. These include threats towards morals, values, beliefs, attitudes, and religious practice. It is important to note that both actual threats and perceived threats have real consequences and can cause individuals to rely more on stereotypes and prejudice when relating to other groups.
One very controversial topic in the field of social psychology is the debate as to whether stereotyping is inevitable or not. When it comes to the concept of stereotyping the idea of prejudice often comes up making it very important to understand the definitions of both stereotyping and prejudice. A stereotype is a “widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing”. In other words, it is a prototypical schema of a person or group. When defining prejudice, the definition is “a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”, therefore, it can be thought of as an unjustifiable/irrational opinion that someone possess. Being that there is no definite
Fred Edmund Jandt (2003), the word “stereotype” was first used to show the judgments made about individuals on the origin of their racial background. Today the expression is more commonly used to pass on to events made on the basis of a groups association. Psychologists have attempted to give explanations of stereotyping as errors that our brains make in the judgment of other people that are related to those mistakes our brains make in the view of illustration illusions. When information is blurred, the brain frequently reaches the incorrect conclusion. (p.77)
The basis for this concept, begins with the causes of prejudice. While there are many causes that relate to prejudice, the context ...
Many often justify discrimination through the means of statistical evidence, claiming that groups that are stigmatized deserve their treatment by citing negative attributes about them. However, this paradox is frequently unresolved to even those who realize the fallacy in discrimination. Several researchers in social psychology, including Galen V. Bodenhausen and Jennifer A. Richeson, have offered potential reasons behind this happening; “It should come as no surprise that individuals’ attitudes and stereotypical beliefs affect the way intergroup interactions unfold. Indeed, individuals who harbor negative stereotypes about the group membership of their interaction partners often display behavior that conforms to their stereotypical beliefs”(Bodenhausen & Richeson, 361). This shows how those discriminated against are likely to adapt to their societal status, and thus often behave according to their respective stereotypes. From this, one can begin to infer that this paradox is a reinforcing cycle, and that prejudice forms as a result of discrimination. Building upon this trend, in the final chapters of the text, a Peters reflects on the trends and results derived from Jane’s exercises, and how it related to the act of discrimination itself; “But even more pernicious, [the exercise] also illustrates how the results of discrimination tend
In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.
Human brains, for the sake of processing information efficiently, use a shortcut known as social categorization. Humans categorize people into different groups based on common features. The three primary social categories for humans are: sex, race, and age (Yoder, 2013). Although categorizing is helpful during life experiences, there’s a negative backlash to compartmentalizing human-beings. The backlash lies in the small leap between categorizing and stereotyping. Stereotyping is used much in the way of categorizing, in that, we simplify complex information, organize, and store the data we collect. The difference between categorizing and stereotyping is when human’s stereotype they ascribe certain attributes to particular individuals within a group based on perceived affiliation with said group (APA, 1991). Once the stereotype has been formed, an increased level of expectation arises, which influences human behavior, that then reinforces the stereotype creating a circle of negative attitudes. These negative attitudes give way to sex discrimination; ...
Stereotyping, discrimination and prejudice are phenomena that motivate animated debate amid the scholars as well as the public. Many ponder on which acts should be deemed discriminatory, when they can come to a conclusion that a decision or a social guideline preference is actually founded on prejudice and the role played by prejudice in creating gender and racial disparities. Also of immense interest are queries regarding how the society should react to these problems and whether they have been dealt with in a pleasing manner. Social psychologists lunge into this dispute equipped with scientific method, hoping to gather evidence that can shed the much needed light on these continuing worries. In particular, this paper seeks to shed some light as to why stereotypes and prejudices occur in the mind of perceivers, as well as the manner and under which circumstances they are most likely to manipulate perceivers’ explicit behavior.