Is it possible to eliminate prejudice

By imagining themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people's actions. Other techniques that are used to reduce prejudice include:.

Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Allport GW. The Nature of Prejudice.

Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Published December 19, Fiske ST. Interdependence Reduces Prejudice and Stereotyping. In Oskamp S, ed. Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; ; Linville PW. The Heterogeneity of Homogeneity. Plous, S. Plous Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind.

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I Accept Show Purposes. Table of Contents View All. Table of Contents. Reducing Prejudice. A stereotype is a simplified assumption about a group based on prior experiences or beliefs. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Therefore, initiatives that 'pretend' everyone is equal and do not highlight difference and inequality might be seen to lack credibility and sophistication. Pendry et al point out that diversity training "differs from the superordinate concept of diversity management in that it does not necessarily imply any background change in system-level structure, decision making or organization ethos" This is important: an organisation with management dominated by middle-class white men compelling its staff to attend 'diversity training' may appear insincere if a commitment to diversity is not shown in the institution as a whole.

Some general limitations of diversity training courses which are similar to those highlighted in the educational initiatives section are also worth mentioning. Firstly, diversity training programmes are often not evaluated at all, or are evaluated by participants directly after sessions, making it impossible to track any long-term effect on attitudes or behaviours.

It is also important to reiterate the point that real change is only possible if people are motivated to change:. This report so far has emphasised the point that people have to want to overcome prejudice, and that meaningful change will generally only occur over time.

It is questionable whether compulsory attendance at a workplace 'diversity' training course, for example, which may be one-day in length, and often shorter, would satisfy this criteria. One of the few academically-evaluated applied prejudice reduction programmes was published in , the culmination of research in Australian workplaces in the s: 'Stereotype Change and Prejudice Reduction: Short- and Long-term Evaluation of a Cross-cultural Awareness Programme' by Hill and Augoustinos.

The Cross-Cultural Awareness programme was an anti-racist educational course used in South Australia in various institutions including some government agencies. Staff attended a three-day training programme on either a compulsory or voluntary basis, depending on the type of role.

The programme's objective was to reduce prejudice towards Aboriginal Australians, a group frequently stereotyped, stigmatised, and discriminated against, and to promote knowledge and appreciation of indigenous culture.

It is important to point out the methodological limitations of the study. As well as the small sample 62 participants , there was no control group and the study was non-random due to location workplace. However, it was evaluated using a social-psychological approach, and given the oft-cited issue of interventions failing to be grounded in theory, it is worthy of consideration. Moreover, it included a 3 month follow-up, addressing another key limitation of such interventions, in that long-term attitude or behaviour change is rarely captured.

The training course involved group discussion, role-play and videos, and was facilitated by Aboriginal employees the target outgroup. Participants were encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs and stereotypes, and to think more broadly about prejudice and discrimination. The results of the intervention were relatively positive. There was a significant improvement in knowledge, and a reduction in negative stereotyping and 'old-fashioned prejudice' p. However, there were limitations. Firstly, effects seemed to reduce after the 3 month period.

This could reflect a deficiency with the intervention, however it is likely to be an indication of the fact that negative stereotyping is a difficult habit to break. Furthermore, the decrease in 'old-fashioned' racism was not matched by a decline in 'modern' racism - for example, the belief that Aboriginal Australians have too much influence as a result of Government initiatives to promote equality.

This chimes with the earlier discussion about the discrepancy between people's broad attitudes to equality and their attitudes towards specific measures to work towards this. They note that:. Genuine institutional and cultural change is undoubtedly more difficult to achieve, but this evaluated case study stresses the importance of bearing in mind that prejudice is not simply a 'personal pathology', and that interventions should look at the structural arrangements of society as a whole.

This echoes Pendry et al argument that diversity management is crucial. Another relatively rare example of evaluated short-term diversity training initiatives are outlined in a report entitled 'The Search for Tolerance: Challenging and changing racist attitudes and behaviour among young people', produced for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation JRF.

These studies reinforce the complexity of the 'contact theory' as it plays out in real-life, in the form of diversity training programmes. The report is based on five separate case studies of small projects in the United Kingdom.

The initiatives focused on tackling racism and improving intergroup relations, and are described below:. Tower Hamlets Summer University is a voluntary sector, informal education project. The 'Diversity Awareness Programme' for convicted racially motivated offenders is run by probation officers. The Jubilee Football Tournament was run by two housing associations and could be described as a community cohesion project" 1. Six hundred young people, mostly 11 and 12 years old, took part in the five projects in total.

A mixture of quantitative survey and qualitative methods were used. Some of the key points on 'what works' and 'what didn't work' that emerged from the report included the need to have a clear structure; a range of activities; sufficient time given to interventions; and consideration of the potential for backlash. In practice diversity training programmes are often 'instructional' in form, as a result of lack of planning, resources, and time.

The studies described in the JRF report were a mix of interactive and instructional, and the findings highlight the limitations of instructional approaches:. This echoes findings in the previous section and supports the theoretical arguments that 'learning through doing' is more effective than simply being told that certain attitudes and behaviours are 'wrong'. Creative methods are more likely to attract and engage participants. For instance, the 'Tower Hamlets Summer University' initiative was criticised for a lack of interactivity and variety of activities.

In contrast, the 'You, Me, and Us' programme in Peterborough, which was a series of workshops within schools involving drama, poetry, storytelling, music and art, proved more popular and because of this potentially more effective.

Notwithstanding the limitations associated with self-reporting through questionnaires, participation in the programme appeared to have positive effects, with a significant proportion claiming to have "a better understanding of the complexities and subtleties of racism and cultural difference" Of course it is very important to be careful not to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of creative methods alone in terms of changing attitudes.

Another attempt to use creative methods to promote equality and improve intergroup relations was the 'Jubilee Football Tournament' in Rochdale, an area characterised by divide between white and South Asian communities. However, a closer examination of the football tournament raises questions about the long-term effects of such initiatives. Feedback through discussions with participants suggested positive short-term effects, as for the duration of the tournament young people from different communities were brought closer together.

However, these effects were short-lived, and it is suggested that this was a consequence of a lack of a clear anti-racist purpose, and failure to build on initial signs of potential improvement in relations. The two communities remained quite separate after the intervention. This highlights the importance of a clear strategy for all prejudice-reduction interventions, and careful monitoring during and afterwards.

It also reiterates that creative methods may well improve the popularity of programmes, but are not necessarily any more effective in terms of changing attitudes or reducing prejudice, especially in the long term.

The most important intervention elements remain contact and education which encourages a self-critical approach. Some of the studies in the JRF report also highlighted the need to be extremely careful when designing and managing discussions about sensitive topics such as racism. For example, the authors note that the in 'You Me and Us' programme:. For example, the day began with a discussion about football hats and scarves, with an implicit message about not making decisions about other people based on stereotypes.

One young person, however, seems to have come to a slightly different conclusion, saying he had learnt: that you are racist just by booing some ones hat. As noted earlier in the discussion of what actually constitutes prejudice, there is a complexity that is perhaps not always recognised when designing prejudice-reduction interventions.

Crucially, the reception of messages and interventions will be influenced by the existing predispositions of participants, so effects will vary. This is particularly important when considering interventions for young children.

As Aboud et al note, "messages need to be tailored to the cognitive and emotional maturity of the children who in most cases already have well-formed opinions of themselves and others" The 'Show Racism the Red Card' initiative in Stafford was said to be successful in reinforcing the point that racism is wrong, but did not really focus attention on sources of prejudice or specific issues raised by the children e.

This suggests that short-term diversity training programmes may risk being seen as superficial, inevitably lacking the depth that more long-term interventions can have. Despite the aforementioned limitations and complexities, it is not suggested that diversity training has no value. Rather, that the key message is that it is important to be careful about how these activities are approached and to consider that some types may work better than others.

The JRF report recommends empathy-inducing interventions as most valuable in terms of challenging prejudiced attitudes. Short-term activities may be useful in conjunction with other interventions for example, on-going education, increase in contact. And as the Australian study showed, these should take place in a broader context of commitment to diversity and anti-racism, with institutional and cultural change. The most successful educational initiatives discussed in the previous section were designed on the basis of the existing social psychology research, and as the studies outlined here emphasise, such considerations are important for short-term interventions too.

The media is regularly used as an approach to tackle prejudice, through TV , radio, and the internet. The media can provide an informational or a normative function, and initiatives may include poster campaigns, advertising, storylines on television programmes, and plays.

This section will cover these briefly, as they complement findings in previous sections and are worth reiterating, and will then move on to look at media campaigns. Emphasising the links between the different prejudice-reduction techniques, Aboud et al suggest that media could represent a useful alternative or addition to contact, for instance in cases in which direct contact between different groups is not feasible:.

Aboud et al carried out a systematic review of 32 studies published from - of various types of interventions to reduce prejudice in early childhood. Interventions took place in various different countries, and all were delivered to young children under the age of eight. Of course such figures should be treated with caution - the different studies will each have had different evaluation methods, and the recurring problem of short-term vs.

Nonetheless, it is a positive indication that media can be used successfully as part of educational strategies to reduce prejudice. Their evidence also strongly suggests that the type of media content very much matters. For example, in relation to using media as part of educational curriculum, "scenes and stories of intergroup contact among peers" fared far better than 'multicultural education Using media as a form of indirect contact, as opposed to focusing on the culture of a minority group, may therefore be a more effective approach.

Media campaigns - for example, by campaign organisations, the Government, or criminal justice agencies - are also extremely popular, and frequently used with the intention of promoting change through raising awareness and challenging attitudes and stereotypes.

Some academic research has looked into the effectiveness of such campaigns, and the results are mixed. Sutton et al suggest that despite the frequency of such campaigns, there is little evidence of their effectiveness. To date there has been very little research, and the authors point out that we cannot easily evidence effectiveness in terms of changing attitudes. Abrams suggests that 'informational' media messages might not be the most efficient way of influencing people and that normative pressure can be much more successful.

The normative communication functions of media can be considered more controversial to libertarians, and again the issue of to what extent Government has the right to intervene in this way is contentious. There is also the issue of the 'credibility of the messenger'. The second step is to try to make sure that your own prejudices do not determine your behaviour. Prejudice should never lead to exclusion or discrimination against others. Also, make sure that you do not spread your own prejudices.

Step three: react! If someone around you hurts other people, insults entire groups, or uses prejudice to define them, react. Oppose them! React in your own circle of friends and acquaintances, respond on social media. How do you do that? You can ask people to tone it down. You can discuss the issue or make yourself heard in another way. You can let people know that you are not okay with offensive or insulting prejudices - whether they affect others or yourself.