PSY220H1 Lecture Notes - Gay Bashing, Gender Role, English Canadian
Document Summary
Prejudice: a negative attitude based toward members of a group based simply on someone belonging to that group. Discrimination: negative, harmful behaviour toward people based on their group membership. Genocide: an attempt to systematically eliminate an ethnic group through banishment or murder. Blatant, overt discrimination is less common today than 20-30 years ago, although it certainly still exists. Discrimination has been made illegal, and equal access has become mandatory policy for employers in the public and private sectors. Social norms now censure prejudice, and people are less likely to express negative feelings publicly. Some people fool themselves into thinking they are unprejudiced when, in fact, they remain (implicitly) biased against members of disadvantaged groups. Old-fashioned, blatant racial discrimination has been replaced by more subtle and ambiguous discrimination. Many majority group members (e. g. white canadians) have ambivalent, or conflicted, feelings toward minorities (e. g. aboriginal and asian canadians).
