Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Need help preparing for the Psych/Soc section of the MCAT? MedSchoolCoach expert, Ken Tao, will teach everything you need to know about Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination for Prejudice and Bias. Watch this video to get all the MCAT study tips you need to do well on the psychology section of the exam!

Here we’ll go over stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, which at first glance may seem to have a highly similar connotation. However, we can understand stereotyping to be related to cognitive labeling, prejudice to be related to emotional affect, and discrimination to be related to behavior.

Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about a group of people. They can be about race, gender, age, or any other factor. For example, one might stereotype French people as snobbish or pretentious. Women might be stereotyped as being more emotionally intelligent. However, these are unfair cognitive labels that don’t apply to every member of a group

Prejudice is an individual's preconceived feelings and attitudes toward a group. Typically, prejudice refers to a negative believe that is unjustifiable. For example, a sexist individual has a particularly intense dislike for members of one of the sexes, that has no reasonable explanation.

Discrimination is carrying out specific negative actions, targeted against a particular group. Unlike stereotypes and prejudice, discrimination implies that behavior is being carried out in the real world, that is directly affecting particular members of a targeted group. For example, someone prejudiced against old people might discriminate against them by choosing to only hire young people.

Schemas and Scripts

A schema is a cognitive framework for understanding a concept or event. Schemas are preconceived based on our past experiences but are dynamic and can change based on new information. Consider a schema about gender. If a girl is raised in a family where the mother stays at home and the father goes to work, then the girl will have a gender schema where women have a role of completing chores and men have a role of going to work. However, let's say that the girl meets a businesswoman. The girl has new information about the roles that women can take on, and so the girl will adjust her schema of women to encompass the ability to work in business.

A script is the sequence of expected actions for a particular situation. For example, if you go to a grocery store, the script is for you to park your car, grab a cart or basket, go through the aisles to pick up items, and then you go check out. As another example, if your friend comes to you to complain about work, your script might be to nod, react to key points, and emphatically agree with what your friend says. A script is your understanding of how a particular situation should be carried out.

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