Explain the causes of prejudice and discrimination and evaluate strategies for reducing them.

What this dot point is asking

You need to distinguish prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination, explain their causes, and evaluate strategies for reducing them.

Three related terms

• Stereotype - a fixed, over-generalised belief about a group (the cognitive component).
• Prejudice - an unjustified attitude, usually negative, towards members of a group based on their membership (the affective component).
• Discrimination - unfair behaviour directed at people because of their group membership (the behavioural component).

A person can hold a prejudice without always acting on it, but discrimination is prejudice put into action.

Causes of prejudice

• Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner). People categorise themselves into in-groups and out-groups, favour their in-group, and boost self-esteem by viewing the out-group negatively. Even arbitrary "minimal groups" produce in-group favouritism.
• Realistic conflict theory. Competition between groups for limited resources breeds hostility. Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave study showed boys split into two camps quickly developed prejudice when competing.
• Social learning. Prejudiced attitudes are learned from family, peers and media.
• Cognitive shortcuts. Stereotyping simplifies a complex social world but at the cost of accuracy.

Reducing prejudice

• The contact hypothesis (Allport). Contact reduces prejudice when groups have equal status, shared goals, cooperation, and support from authorities. Mere contact is not enough.
• Superordinate goals. Sherif found that goals requiring both groups to cooperate reduced the hostility that competition had created.
• The jigsaw classroom (Aronson). Structuring learning so students depend on each other's contributions reduces prejudice and improves relations.
• Education and recategorisation. Challenging stereotypes and encouraging people to see a shared, larger group identity.

Why it matters

Prejudice and discrimination affect wellbeing, opportunity and social cohesion. Understanding their psychological roots allows the design of interventions that actually work, rather than relying on contact alone.

It is also useful to distinguish explicit prejudice (consciously held and openly expressed attitudes) from implicit prejudice (automatic, unconscious associations that can influence behaviour even in people who sincerely reject prejudice). Implicit attitudes help explain why discrimination can persist despite widespread endorsement of equality, and why interventions sometimes need to target automatic associations and institutional practices, not just stated beliefs. In the Australian context, this framing is relevant to understanding systemic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other minority groups.

Stereotypes are also self-perpetuating in ways that make prejudice hard to shift. People show confirmation bias, noticing and remembering information that fits a stereotype while explaining away information that contradicts it, so a single counter-example rarely changes the belief. Stereotype threat describes how awareness of a negative stereotype about one's own group can itself impair performance (for example on a test), which can then appear to confirm the stereotype, completing a damaging cycle. Recognising these cognitive and social mechanisms is why effective interventions change the structure of contact and institutions rather than simply asking people to be less biased.