People usually say that humans become prejudiced because they learned it from somewhere. The media, family, peers, etc.
I’m not really sure about that. There’s a few groups who shall remain nameless, that I have very strong prejudices against. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. They were not learned. Actually, I’ve been raised strongly to think of these people positively and have compassion for them. But for some reason, when I come into contact with them, I have the same reaction as coming into contact with a snake or spider. I feel significant anxiety and throws me into “fight or flight” mode.
Granted, I do treat these specific groups of people as equals. I’ve been socialized to do so, and I know what it’s like to be treated like crap, because I’m gay. In many parts of the world and even some parts of the US, my life would be in danger because of my orientation. This, however, doesn’t stop me from having negative feelings towards certain groups. But…in my effort to think of these people as human beings and to treat them like human beings take a significant amount of willpower. It’s not the other way around, as many people suggest. I don’t go out my way to act prejudiced…I go out my way to treat them with kindness, despite what I’m feeling inside.
I remember reading an article in Time, a few years ago, about babies having racial biases and touched upon this subject a little bit. That perhaps people are BORN with prejudices, and not that they learned them. But I remember people still denying the possiblity. That somehow the babies have picked up cues from their parents.
My prejudices, have nothing to do with race, by the way. It’s other groups. Some common, and others, not so common.
Pretty much. I mean, look at racism; racism is a learned prejudice, a relatively recent development. For most of history racism was pretty much a non-issue simply because the vast majority of people never saw anyone of a different “race”, or even knew they existed; and the whole idea of race had to be invented. You can’t be prejudiced against black people if you don’t even have the concept of “black people”, much less know they exist. Or for another example in the opposite direction, look at left handedness; for centuries there was lots of prejudice towards them, leading to everything from language (“sinister” meaning both “left” and “evil” for example); then in just a few decades it appears to have pretty much vanished in this country. If it was instinctive, merely stopping teaching prejudice against left handers wouldn’t have resulted in it withering away like that.
I understand that the evidence indicates that it’s semi-hardwired; we have a built in tendency to become afraid/disgusted by such things, so even a tiny experience like seeing your mother yell in startlement over being surprised by a snake can trigger it. But if nothing happens to trip that built in “fear snakes/spiders” switch, you can reach adulthood without developing the fear.
Not completely; parents and would-be-utopians who try to raise children according to some ideal that is divorced from human nature fail. Just look at all the attempts to teach kids that sex is evil; it doesn’t stop people from having sex, it just makes them guilty and abusive.
As a human being, you are bio-programmed to seek shelter and safety in a group of other people.
Your rejection of any group of people is only based on the social cues of the group that has accepted you, or you happened to live in and be accepted into.
Social rejection is a social behavior, therefore learned.