Prejudiced person. What is Prejudice? How to overcome prejudice against a person

Ecology of consciousness. Psychology: Interacting with the world and people, we often do not even realize that we are controlled by stereotypes, of which the set of human beliefs consists.

What is prejudice and prejudice

Bias- lack of impartiality, prejudice, an initial tendency to a certain position.

Bias- this is a way of psychological reaction, which manifests itself in a deliberately negative attitude towards something or someone. This is prejudice and confidence in a negative result or in the negative qualities of a person (group of people), regardless of the circumstances. Such an opinion, as a rule, is formed in advance, based on false principles, attitudes and insufficiently verified information.

Prejudice is cold to the arguments of logic and indifferent to the facts.. It is generated by stereotypes, and at the origins are the fear of change, laziness and inertia of thinking. She draws strength from pride, self-confidence.

The only one who acted sensibly was my tailor. He measured me again every time he saw me, while everyone else came up to me with old measurements, expecting me to match them.

George Bernard Shaw

Interacting with the world and people, we often do not even realize that we are controlled by stereotypes, of which the set of human beliefs consists. Each person has his own set of stereotypes, patterns, templates, which determine the character. style of interacting with the world.

Being a hostage of his own mind, a person loses many opportunities. For example: it is unrealistic to be in the here and now, it is unrealistic to be even a little bit objective, it is unrealistic to get a quality result in something, to be a master of your craft, it is impossible to love yourself and the world around.There is no chance to become a creator in anything, including your life. There is no chance of building a happy family relationship or forming a trusting relationship with a child if you are prone to bias.

Unfortunately, in most people, consciousness does not develop beyond the level of beliefs. In fact, all internal and external conflicts in a person's life are the result of the conflict of his patterns, stereotypes and beliefs between themselves or when they collide with the patterns of other people.

People who are prejudiced about many things can be identified by a number of signs:

Any facts and information that contradict the established stereotypes cause a number of doubts, a prejudiced attitude and a nervous, sometimes aggressive reaction in a person;

Man in every possible way avoids that which could deny the standards accepted for him, considering them unshakable established laws of life;

A biased individual does not allow the idea that his opinion may be erroneous or inaccurate - for him it is the only true one;

A prejudiced attitude is based on a negative attitude towards the object of discussion pre-established in the subconscious of a person;

A person tends to accept the only correct point of view for himself, completely ignoring the other options;

A person who lives only according to established stereotypes, not recognizing any innovations and progressive approaches, eventually begins to think rather narrowly, his development is limited, as progress moves forward, but he is still at an early stage;

A person who is biased towards the opinions of other people cannot be called a free person. He lives strictly within the established limits, relying on his limitations and limits;

The individual loses his own opinion, which is based on an analysis of the current situation, he acts in one way or another, because it is necessary, no more;

It is very difficult to convince a prejudiced person, so many people simply step aside, not wanting to waste their energy and nerves on meaningless disputes.

Did you recognize yourself at any point? And now remember your relationship with relatives, loved ones, people who are significant to you, just people. that appear in your life.

What beliefs, patterns are based on your interaction with them? How often do you react in the same way to events in your life? What labels do you put on the people you interact with?

Try to be honest with yourself on these questions. If it's hard to answer right away, observe yourself for a while and consider your bias towards life in the actions of each day.It makes no sense to be scared or upset when you discover your own bias, it makes sense to accept it and watch how it manifests itself.

And one more question: does your prejudice make you a happy person, or vice versa, as a result, brings suffering, worries, pain, resentment or fear?

Now decide, do you want to be happy and free from prejudice, or will you continue to be a victim of your own mind, or rather its games?

If you make a choice in favor of awareness and a happy life, then start by observing your thoughts, your emotional reactions, actions and actions.

Try to realize every new day of your life as NEW, unfamiliar to you. Get to know him, with his every moment. Consider it, savor it, learn it. Enjoy life, and do not spend it on the implementation of the stereotypes of your mind, and what is even worse, the stereotypes imposed on you by someone.

Let each meeting with a person you already know carry the effect of novelty. Set yourself the task of finding something new every time, even in a person you have known for a long time. Let your attention and perception of a person be pure, devoid of patterns.

Have a nice interaction with your own life!published

Most American companies accept applicants' resumes without a photo, age or marital status. And all in order to exclude a biased attitude towards a person and choose a specialist solely on his knowledge and experience. But in life you have to work not with candidates, but with yourself. What is dangerous personal bias and how to deal with it, we tell in the article.

What is prejudice

A biased attitude is such an attitude towards something or someone that is based on prejudice or pre-existing biased opinion. A biased attitude is always an attitude with a minus sign, based on false principles, prejudices, subjective information from third parties or on personal emotional attitudes. Prejudice is inherent in absolutely all people. But it's one thing to be aware of your limitations, and quite another to let them take over and the mind.

Scientists say that human bias is product of evolution. In order to be faster and more reliable in unfamiliar situations, our ancestors were forced to be guided by previous experience. But we live in a much more complex society, and a “reasonable person” has logic, rational thinking, and the ability to analyze. But they don't always work. Most people prefer to believe what they are used to believing. Therefore, "confirmation bias" is traditionally included in the list of the most common cognitive biases.

Prejudice can arise against anyone: personally to strangers, to ethnic groups, to certain professions, to a gender group. It can be formed from personal experience or an opinion imposed by someone. For example, for decades, television has stubbornly instilled a negative perception of fat people in viewers. And society is still wary of everything that is connected with them. In everyday life, bias simply interferes with life, but at the state level it can lead to wars, pogroms, genocide.

Why is prejudice dangerous?

It is clear that the imprint of the past affects the behavior of a person in the present. If a person unconsciously shows a prejudiced attitude towards people, then there has already been a painful experience in his past. Or the behavior, appearance, statements of strangers contradict his personal beliefs. In this regard, bias can be compared to the bar - the higher it is set, the more dangers it brings to the person himself:

• Forms inflexible thinking and one single-correct point of view.
• Deprives inner freedom.
• It does not allow listening to others, accepting someone else's opinion.
• It interferes with learning new things, expanding horizons.
• It forces you to selectively choose facts and make wrong decisions based on them.
• Causes a nervous or aggressive reaction to any information that contradicts prejudices.
• "Enables" internal filters that discard anything that may be contrary to internal standards.
• Deprives of communication, because it makes an uninteresting interlocutor.
• Leads to the breakdown of social ties.

But the main disadvantage of uncontrolled bias is that it drives you into the framework of stereotypes, clichés, prejudices, and makes you get hung up on your prejudices. All this forces the body to spend too much energy on minute-by-minute control of its behavior. As a result, it wears out, worsens, and over time it can come to.

How to overcome your own bias

The fight against the preconceived opinion of another is like a war with windmills - it takes a lot of strength, but little sense. Therefore, the struggle will be only from within and by personal desire.

So, three steps for those who decide to fight personal bias and build social connections.

Step 1. Assess your degree of bias

In psychology, there is such a thing - apperception: the tendency to perceive any information through the prism of established attitudes. Moreover, unwanted information about oneself simply does not pass internal filters, and it is very difficult to admit the “sin” of bias. But you can.

Step 2. Recognize the negative consequences of your prejudice

Our prejudices sometimes exist only in our minds and are not reflected in the real world. But they can greatly undermine health: lead to, provoke depression, phobic or. In addition, they will interfere with careers and relationships - most people do not want to waste time and energy on pointless arguments. But above all, you need to remember that a biased attitude towards another person can ruin his life. For example, lower his self-esteem or provoke a negative attitude of other people.

What to do? Get a special notebook and for a week or two write down in it all the cases when stereotypes and prejudices interfered with life. And then count all the points to realize how many chances were missed due to such an unproductive bias.

Step 3: Seek new experiences daily

We live and work in a multicultural world, but due to our prejudices, we inevitably encounter problems of understanding, especially with people from other cultures. A biased attitude towards other nationalities, a foreign culture only hinders communication and understanding of other people. But you can only recognize a person when you stop judging him and start listening and understanding.

What to do? Start small. For example, when meeting with a colleague, ask yourself: am I always impartial to him? What good or bad thing has he really done for me? What virtues do I not appreciate? Then you can go further - purposefully get to know different people or go on a trip to another country.

Antonyms of bias are objectivity, impartiality, open-mindedness. If personal "blindness" is difficult, you can focus on these positive qualities and gradually develop them. Because it is much easier for a person who is light and positive to build his life based on preferences, and not on prejudices.

conclusions:

• Bias is a deliberately negative and unsubstantiated psychological reaction.
• Prejudice is a serious psychological barrier and the main cause of hostility, conflicts, resentment.
• It is difficult to assess the degree of one's prejudice - there are special tests for this.

Phraseological turnover "biased attitude towards a person" means ignoring personal qualities and actions, making an opinion based on information from third parties or unreliable sources. Prejudice is found not only in everyday life, but also in judicial practice, although numerous decisions require to fight it and objectively evaluate all the arguments of the parties.

What do dictionaries say

It is easier to find the expression "biased attitude towards a person" in the literature than in reference publications. The decoding of the term can be found in dictionaries:

• Explanatory Dictionary of Kuznetsov;
• Synonym dictionary;
• Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy;
• Encyclopedia of Modern Legal Psychology;
• Dictionary of Ozhegov.

To a large extent, prejudice against man is a product of evolution. Ancient people used past experience to protect life and make quick decisions in unfamiliar conditions. A useful and correct mechanism has developed, but modern man has learned to use logic and analysis, allowing for fairer judgments.

A biased attitude towards a person becomes the result of an uncritical attitude towards sources of information. A person trusts the opinion expressed not on the basis of an analysis of facts, but because the source of the statement is a boss, a TV announcer, a friend, or simply older in age or position.

Where does prejudice come from?

Prejudice against a person is formed by stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination based on gender, age, social, religious motives. People willingly believe messages on the Internet, newspaper and magazine articles, television programs. Thanks to this, representatives of creative professions (actors, singers, TV presenters) are perceived as leading a dissolute lifestyle, prone to adultery and not burdened with duties and social responsibility. On closer examination, the preconceived attitude towards a person is easily destroyed.

People of many professions are also subject to prejudice: doctors, teachers, lawyers and judges, sailors. Recall the old "traffic cop - it means he takes bribes." Many offer money to the traffic police inspector who stopped the car for violating the rules, forgetting that fines are now accrued based on information received from video cameras. The inspector does not decide anything, he only warns the offense.

A biased attitude towards a person is characterized by a pronounced negative orientation, the desire to find a second meaning and something offensive in any actions and words. When solving any problem, the answer of a person who is biased will obviously be wrong.

A biased attitude can be shown not only in relation to one person, but also to a group of people, an object or a phenomenon. Social networks are openly biased against people who can be attributed to any community on the basis of gender, property, family.

Social media is a generator of bias

On the Internet, thanks to supposed anonymity (you can always close a profile or start another one under an assumed name), people allow themselves behavior that is unacceptable in real life. Opinion bias is one of the common hobbies of network "experts" and "experts".

Common stamps are:

• "zhemat", referring to a woman raising a child and interacting with others;
• "Muscovites", expressed in relation to people whose account is registered in Russia;
• "ukry", "khokhly", referring to the citizens of Ukraine, regardless of the place of residence;
• “Crunches” is a slang term for motorcyclists who prefer sports bikes;
• “pension” is a dismissive attitude towards older people, a denial of their experience and knowledge.

The enumeration can be continued, but such words are equally offensive and not fair to everyone in whose direction they are expressed. Moreover, one who resorts to criticism of this kind admits the violation of several moral principles at once, among which is European tolerance.

How to overcome prejudice against a person

Prejudice against a person can and should be fought. Such an attitude is a potential source of danger and a real infringement of rights. One's own bias must be overcome, since in modern society it has lost its deeply historical protective functions and became a factor hindering development.

The first step to defeating bias is realizing that personal opinion is not objective. It is necessary to learn to be aware that stereotyped generalizations are erroneous. Recognize that prejudice is detrimental to the one who experiences it. Be open to everything new and non-standard.

What is bias

Prejudice, according to the etymology of this word, means prejudice towards something, manifested in advance. This may relate to assessments, conclusions, opinions, the result of which is a biased attitude towards a situation, event, phenomenon, person, etc. This attitude has both subjective and objective reasons.

Objective reasons for bias

Objective reasons are dictated by certain generally accepted norms, rules, the current socio-political situation. For example, there is a rule of etiquette: it is unacceptable for an applicant to be late for a pre-employment interview. Of course, this can be explained with a good reason. Some HR managers, in addition to the interview, attach great importance to the probationary period, where the employee can fully reveal himself. In such cases, regardless of the unwanted incident, they hire the employee. But more than 50% of recruiters consider being late for an interview completely unacceptable. This is often dictated by the corporate culture of the company. Of course, in such cases, there will be a biased attitude towards the candidacy of a latecomer as a person who is not punctual.

Subjective causes of bias

The subjective reasons for a biased attitude, for example, between a leader and a subordinate, may be related to the specifics of the approach to the individual. They depend on such properties as low self-esteem, fear of competition due to young age or bright leadership qualities, greater competence, and finally, charisma, which the leader will see as a potential reason to take his chair. Often at school, a teacher may develop a biased attitude, negative, distrustful towards a student who entered the school from a dysfunctional family, or towards the children of immigrants who arrived from the former Soviet republics.

Bias and stereotypes

A biased attitude is something that can be based on stable prejudices, prevailing public opinion, and stereotypes. Not so long ago in our country there was an opinion that a woman leader is worse than a man, able to cope with the role of a boss. It was more difficult for her to establish herself in leadership positions, especially when she came to a new, already established team. Life, social and economic development change a lot. Nowadays, women often head companies, firms, open their own business. In many regions, especially in the outback, a preconceived notion about a woman leader still remains.

Consequences of Bias

A biased attitude, the meaning and consequences of which can be assessed as negative, leads to controversial situations. A conflict based on distrust can arise within a team of employees, between a leader and subordinates, between students and a teacher, parents and a teacher, a coach and athletes, etc. In turn, this affects the image and work of the enterprise. From difficult life situations associated with interpersonal relationships, no one is immune. It is impossible to foresee them in advance. We must remember that there is always a way out. If it is difficult to find it yourself, you should turn to friends, relatives, a professional psychologist.

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It is easier to remain silent than to prove to a prejudiced person the injustice of his prejudices. Prejudice is a complex concept. It would seem that it is easier to get consent to the obvious facts, but it was not so. Combined with stubbornness - this is almost impossible. Against iron prejudices, for Prejudice, all arguments and arguments are powerless. Against any of your statements, the brain of such a person has put up an impenetrable barrier. Belief in signs, proverbs, sayings, folk signs is a kind of brain disease, blinders on the eyes and restriction of activity.

No matter what you try to prove, your thought will be met by the person's own attitudes and prejudices. Breaking ties or making new ones is almost impossible! The growth of brain cells - neurons occurs constantly and spontaneously, but the connections between old neurons remain for a very long time. Therefore, the irrationality of prejudice can exist independently of personal experience.

Prejudice- false, biased, preconceived negative opinion about something. As a kind of belief, prejudice differs from the latter in two circumstances - it can be relative to someone and something, but definitely not against itself.

In practice, it can be quite difficult to test bias. It can easily be mistaken for persuasion. An experienced eye will distinguish prejudice by the lack of logic in the justification of one's position and by indifference to facts.

If a person not able to go beyond the usual ideas even in a situation where life directly contradicts the previous ideas about it, there is a high probability that we are dealing with prejudice.

The persistence of prejudice is legendary. It is a hundred times easier to refute a belief than a prejudice. This is an amazing fact, but it reproduces itself. Having once mentally outlined the rationale for his prejudice, a person does not want to part with it. Rational thinking and the usual rules of logic are also needed here, like money on a desert island.

A person has blinders in his eyes: he does not notice that prejudice contradicts his entire system of beliefs and beliefs. The facts on which the prejudice rested have already been refuted by everyone, but this does not mean anything - the prejudice will continue to live in clover.

What is the nature of prejudice? Where do they come from? The answer is the following - everyday personal experience of a person and the sources of prejudice - Stereotypes.

You think it is No - this is only one of the components of obstinacy. The structure of the brain and memory consists of neurons and synapses connections between neurons. The thickness of the strands of these neural connections determines our memory. The more times the neuron and its logical connection were used, the greater the thickness of the synapse and the greater the ability to pass impulses.

Stereotypes are the real sources of prejudice. Contacting with others, a person compares and evaluates them through the prism of the attitudes he already has. The brain is designed to look for danger in everything. For this reason, he sees and hears what he wants to see and hear.

The prejudices of a group or even an entire country, very often, are of a mass, national or racial nature. This can be fueled by the leaders of the country and the media. Prejudice is a mechanism for inciting hatred of separatism, racism, fascism if they are used in politics.

And now let's remember Fascism and Racism. Society hammered into the head of an entire people the stereotypes of the Nazi ideology, which gave rise to the corresponding prejudices and the fascist ideology of the destruction of peoples. Consequently, prejudices are social and social phenomena brought to life by stereotypes of mass consciousness and crowd control.

Each person identifies himself as a person, relating himself to some group of people (kindergarten, school, sports club, party, nation, state).

Each of these structures requires us to follow certain rules. Being within its limits, we feel ourselves involved in them. Voluntarily or involuntarily, we think in the same direction with the rest of the members of such a structure, feeding the appropriate attitudes with our thought energy. By exploiting our sense of self-importance, such Bias mechanisms cause us to consider our structures to be better than others.

Groups of persons or the State, forming our need for a qualitative comparison of structures, first impose the stereotypes they need, which, in turn, give rise to prejudices.

Prejudice - bad or good?

In defense of prejudice, there are several examples, and here is one of them: If an indecisive, shy person is convinced that he is respected and appreciated in a new job, and he believes in this, this prejudice will play a positive role. He successfully adapts to the new team.

When do changes in Prejudice occur?

A change of attitudes occurs in a person only during a period of personal deep crisis and a period of disappointment. During this period, there is a powerful reassessment of established connections, internal growth, purification of all kinds of negative Prejudices.

Modern life requires us to make constant decisions, sometimes under stress. We rarely analyze our behavior and do not try to understand - why did we make this or that choice?

People tend to ignore and forget information that contradicts their opinions or expectations. We believe something because everyone around us believes, and we follow the general opinion without reasoning. We make many important decisions, striving to be part of the majority.

Another negative side of this mistake is “groupthink”, when a decision is made with the tacit support of the majority, and a good idea that one of the silent ones could offer is drowned.

Choice Defense Fallacy A person tends to defend a decision that has already been made to the last, on the grounds that, once it is made, it is correct. It's called - ohostrich error and confirmation bias. Ostrich is a bird! An ostrich error is a conscious or subconscious decision to ignore negative information about something.

These are the most important points:

Confirmation bias is one of the most dangerous types of errors that distort scientific research. When conducting experiments, it should be tried in every possible way to avoid it. People tend to pay attention only to the positive aspects of a phenomenon.

Faced with a problem, a person sometimes tends to ignore it, hoping that it will resolve itself. Close your eyes and not see - a familiar situation. You want to ignore the decision, or accept the decision in execution - just by closing your eyes, hoping that the problem will solve itself. As an example - remember the letters of the tax office in your mailbox!

To avoid negative information, we simply cease to be interested in it. This error also seriously distorts the results of scientific experiments and can lead to disastrous consequences.

After a decision is made, a person rarely analyzes the conditions in which it was made and implemented, but pays attention only to its positive or negative effect.

And then, once having solved the most difficult task, a person becomes overly self-confident and begins to make decisions based not on facts, but only on his own opinion - only because so far the decisions have been correct. This is the error of Prejudice.

Life and conditions change every day and every second, old data and the use of Prejudice is very harmful to a person. Analyze your ideas and attitudes every day! Check the viability of your conclusions and actions - every day! Business does not stand still! Only then will you be successful!