Associate Program Material
Discrimination Worksheet
Write a 100- to 200-word response to each of the following questions. Provide citations for all the sources you use.
• What is discrimination? How is discrimination different from prejudice and stereotyping?
discrimination, in psychology, the ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli. It is considered a more advanced form of learning than generalization, the ability to perceive similarities, although animals can be trained to discriminate as well as to generalize.
discrimination. (2013). In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/165484/discrimination
I like the Britannica definition of discrimination. It doesn’t so much focus on the human social aspect of discrimination between races and the negative connotation that it carries. Discrimination is just the ability to dicern a difference. Prejudice and stereotyping are more commonly associated with negative behaviours like name calling, type casting, and generalizations that offend. Prejudice is more of a negative generalization because the person holds some sort of grudge, while a stereotype may have been meant to have been harmless.
Again, Birtannica classifies prejudice as (behavior) and stereotype as (social) pointing to the fact that it is a human construct.
prejudice. (2013). In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/474816/prejudice
stereotype. (2013). In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/669463/stereotype
• What are the causes of discrimination?
I think one of the more impacting causes of discrimination is the lack of political representation. A lack of political respresentation completely submits the subordinate group to societies social structures. When discrimination becomes this widespread it’s usually called institutional discrimination. This type of...
