Stereotypes and Prejudice Research: Sociological Reasons

Stereotypes and Prejudice
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Stereotypes and Prejudice
The American culture has established various strategies aiming to encourage the diversity acceptance and celebration. However, there are many cases of age, gender, and race discrimination in the American society. Social scientists have tried to study and analyze why the challenge keeps progressing from one generation to another. Their contributions have led to the development of possible social causes of this stereotyping that researchers can use to generate ideas to tackle the matter. Socialization, conformity behaviors, ethnocentrism, and group conflicts are the primary sociological reasons that contribute to the discriminations.
Most prejudices are passed on from one generation to another, such as from parents to their children. The interaction between these individuals result in them adapting some perspective concerning a particular group (Pager & Shepherd, 2008). For instance, a child born to a white family who demeans other races would likely acquire the same opinion over time. Additionally, the media through movies, programs, and advertisements has also helped in ingraining these stereotypes on people’s minds. As a result, they become socialized and understand that some people are supposed to be treated in a certain way. For example, many commercials would use women to advertise domestic products and cosmetics, while men deal with cars and investments. From this, the society believes that particular roles are for women and others for men.
Another social reason is the need for individuals to conform to some behaviors (Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick & Esses, 2010). The pressure that families, friends, and communities place on one to agree with their view leads to the cases of spread of prejudices. The fear of losing social support because of rejecting to have similar opinions as those they associate with, makes people prefer to accept to be part of the discrimination. For instance, a man who has friends that are of the opinion that women are supposed to undertake household duties without the help of a man would most likely do the same with his family. The need to remain relevant in the peer cycle drives these decisions. Additionally, if a person comes from a particular race that perceives another as inferior, they would stick to the notion to avoid becoming an outcast.
Ethnocentrism is another social aspect that contributes to discrimination of gender, age or race. In this case, individuals rate the culture of others against theirs. The result is stereotypical thinking of groups that do not have similar traits (Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick & Esses, 2010). For instance, the young employers would consider the way of doing things by those that are older as not conforming to t...