Overcome Personal Prejudice

Making judgments about others isn't always wrong, in some cases, it is necessary for our survival. While this strategy is effective for determining danger or risk, it's a complication when it comes to other types of interactions. Conscious or unconscious, the biases you have about others affects the way you look at and interact within the world. Building awareness of bias and actively trying to broaden your worldview are two methods to overcoming your personal prejudices.

Steps

Building Awareness

  1. Recognize prejudice at play in your life. Prejudice, when broken down, basically means pre-judgment. Having awareness that you do, in fact, make unfair assessments or judgments about others is a great starting place. Take a close look at your life and your everyday interactions. Think about the beliefs, thoughts, and opinions you have developed about others. When did these prejudices take root? What is happening to reinforce them in your life?
    • Researchers believe that, as early as age 3, children begin developing an attachment with their own cultural or racial group, the in-group, and unconsciously have negative views of all other groups, the out-groups.[1]
    • Some of these biases are learned within the home or cultural group. Others are emphasized within the media.
  2. Accept that these prejudices are learned and can be unlearned. So, we know that children learn prejudice early on in life.[2] Given that prejudice is learned, it, too, can be unlearned. No matter how long you have had certain viewpoints about other groups, it is entirely possible to change these views.
    • Prejudice can be unlearned with diversity education. One study found that students who took a prejudice seminar had significantly reduced prejudice and stereotypes after completing the seminar.[3]
  3. Commit to changing your personal prejudices.[4] Implementing a change as substantial as transforming your personal prejudices requires great commitment. You must truly want to change these biases with maximum effort and continue in the change process despite difficulty or loss of motivation.[1]
    • You can show commitment to changing your personal prejudices by developing a plan to take action. Choose one prejudice at a time that you want to change and identify methods in which you can change it. Set a deadline. Over time, check your progress.
  4. Observe your self-talk.[5] Self-talk includes statements that we tell ourselves throughout the day. Bringing awareness to your personal prejudice demands paying very close attention to what you are telling yourself about different groups. In addition to helping you overcome prejudice, improving negative self-talk can also boost your self-esteem and mental well-being.[6]
    • Intentionally listen in to your thoughts when you interact with people from different cultural and racial groups or other backgrounds. What kinds of things are you thinking? What proof do you have that these judgments are valid?

Gaining a Worldview

  1. Shift your perspective with consciousness-raising.[7] You can completely transform your tolerance from others by changing your viewpoint to become more conscious of what prejudice and discrimination perpetuate within individuals and society. We make prejudice statements looking from the inside out. Can you imagine things from an alternative point of view, from the outside in?
    • Think about how others see your in-group(s). Are you ever unfairly judged? Are your friends or relatives treated with prejudice? How does that feel to you? What would you say to someone who made an unfair assessment of you based on a stereotype?
  2. Read more. Cracking open a book - either fiction or nonfiction - can ultimately help you counteract misinformation and ignorance of various out-groups, and lead to less personal prejudice. Challenge yourself to choose something that opens your eyes to a new group of people.
    • Research shows that people who read and identify with Harry Potter's character in the book series were less likely to demonstrate prejudice against minority groups.
    • Fictional books may have a greater advantage over nonfiction choices for this purpose. The researchers believe that tackling discrimination issues in a fictional world can provoke readers to truly ponder them without defensiveness and self-righteousness getting in the way.[8][9]
  3. Travel. If your worldview consists of a single culture, it can be difficult to see beyond it. For that reason, travel is essential in overcoming personal prejudice.[10] Be warned, however, that travel does not require going across the globe. Yes, going to a different country or continent can help shift your worldview, but you can also learn about different groups of people by visiting other areas in your city, other cities in your state, or other states.
  4. Make friends with people from diverse groups. Once you have made progress in shifting your worldview, it can be helpful to open up to other groups in terms of your friendships. One researcher proposed the idea of a contact hypothesis, meaning contact with a member of an out-group can reduce prejudice.[11]
    • The next time you see an opportunity to strike up a conversation with a person from a different group than your own, take it. Keeping everything you have learned about prejudice in mind, aim to get to know this person. Drop your pre-judgments and allow this person to show you who he truly is.

Changing Attitudes

  1. Challenge prejudice with reality testing.[5][12] When you become aware of the prejudice in your self-talk, you can take action to change these thoughts before they lead to discriminatory behavior against others.
    • Ask yourself what evidence is there for or against a bias. For example, you see a blond and immediately think she may not be very intelligent. What evidence is there for this? None. What evidence is there against it? None.
    • It is virtually impossible to assess other's intelligence since intelligence involves many factors beyond textbook knowledge, and it certainly isn't gleaned with a mere glance. Therefore, you are making an unfair assessment of this person with little evidence to go on.
  2. Try goal-oriented thinking. When we are faced with the unknown, our minds may automatically retreat to the worst-case scenario. Elect to override this way of thinking by asking yourself whether it allows you to meet your objectives. When we are not thinking in a goal-oriented way, we are being negative. But, you can change this.[12]
    • For instance, you are walking at night and pass an African American young man. You hurry your footsteps and pat your pants to check for your wallet. Unconsciously, you think "danger" or "bad".
    • You can challenge this prejudice with goal-oriented thinking in addition to the reality testing. After asking what evidence you have to think this way, you could also ask yourself how thinking this way is helping you meet your objective of stopping prejudice. It's not.
    • Thinking this way is causing you to unfairly judge others, allowing you to play into media-driven stereotypes, and keeping you from connecting with those different from you.
  3. React to other's biases. As you continue in your own change process, you must also actively challenge prejudice expressed by those around you. When an acquaintance, friend, or family member forms a pre-judgment about an individual for any reason - race, ethnic group, disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, etc. - confront them. You can use reality testing to challenge others' views as well.[12] You might ask:
    • What evidence do you have to support or deny such a statement?
    • Are you jumping to conclusions about this person?
    • How can you actually find out if this statement is true rather than making an assumption?

Warnings

  • Be prepared to learn things about yourself that may not please you. It is sometimes quite unsettling to learn that we are not as open-minded as we think we are.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias
  2. ↑ http://archive.adl.org/what_to_tell/whattotell_learning.html#.VrOXp9IrLcc
  3. ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11708562
  4. ↑ http://eab.sagepub.com/content/45/1/3.abstract
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 http://www.beyondprejudice.com/reduce_your.html
  6. ↑ http://www.mindhealthconnect.org.au/self-talk
  7. ↑ http://ceap.org.ph/upload/download/20135/3115313479_1.pdf
  8. ↑ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12279/abstract
  9. ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201505/does-reading-harry-potter-books-reduce-prejudice
  10. ↑ http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/top_10_strategies_for_reducing_prejudice
  11. ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/are-we-born-racist/201011/holiday-toast-cross-race-friendship
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 http://psychcentral.com/lib/challenging-negative-self-talk/
Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Overcome_Personal_Prejudice&oldid=275459"