PSYC30203 Social Psychology

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Tutorial 8

Stereotyping, Prejudice and Discrimination

Question 1

Choose one of the following tasks;

1. Watch a movie or a documentary related to either stereotype, prejudice and

discrimination OR ways to reduce stereotype, prejudice and discrimination

2. Identify a song related to either stereotype, prejudice and/or discrimination OR ways to

reduce stereotype, prejudice and discrimination

Describe five points how stereotype, prejudice and/or discrimination OR ways to reduce

stereotype, prejudice and discrimination in the movie / documentary or song is reflected.

1. Stereotype of race and ethnicity occurs when people lack knowledge about other races.

For instance, Hispanic people consists of people from many different countries such as

Mexico, Guatemala and Chile which makes them diverse in terms of culture. However,

people from other races often think they are all the same and share totally identica l

cultures, beliefs and customs.

2. Stereotype happens when people assume that a person from another race is unable to

converse in their language fluently. For instance, when a white English-speaking man

is asking questions to a foreign- looking woman he just met, he speaks slower and uses

simple English even though the woman had lived in his country for many years and is

able to converse fluently in English.

3. Stereotype also occurs due to negativity bias. People tend to remember more about

negative traits of others. When a single person of different ethnicity has a negative trait,

such as being a snob or lazy, people will stereotype that all people from that single

person’s ethnicity share the same trait.

Title of the documentary

BEYOND STEREOTYPES – A DOCUMENTARY

PSYC30203 Social Psychology

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4. Stereotype and prejudice happen when certain problems occur, such as high

unemployment rates. People tend to blame others when there are problems due to

fundamental attribution error. Some Americans blame immigrants for ‘stealing’ their

jobs during the economic recession but it is actually they themselves who refuse to get

low-income jobs. The immigrants are just doing jobs they do not want, yet they face

discrimination from the locals.

5. When some people interact with others who have lower education standards than theirs,

they directly assume that they are less knowledgeable than themselves, which results in

stereotyping. Also, they might assume that people are uneducated due to their laziness

as they fail to see the true story behind the reason which forced them to drop their

studies.