Will Prejudice Ever End?

Prejudice in the World Today; Will it Ever End? According to “Causes of Prejudice” by Vincent N. Parrillo, there are many causes to this complex phenomenon. Many social scientists have attempted to identify the causes of prejudice, but no single factor is to blame. Prejudice happens all around the world every second of every day. During this essay I am going to address the possible causes of this phenomena by looking at the psychology approach as well as the sociological standpoints to this problem in our world. I will also address the question: “Will prejudice ever cease to exist in our world?” This question is very controversial, but through observation the answer is obvious. The main reason I want to address this question as the …show more content…
Whether it is through ethnocentrism, stereotyping, socialization, etc. people fall victim or victimize another through this phenomenon regularly. For most, it is just a part of life or the way they were brought up, and it just comes naturally to think this way. Prejudice is defined as: “a system of negative beliefs, feelings, and action orientations regarding a certain group or groups of people.” There are many different opinions on how prejudice came to be. There is the psychological approach to the idea, which centers on just one person and discusses how this person might have developed a prejudice. There is also the sociological approach which reviews why a group might develop a prejudice towards another. When reviewing how prejudice came to be, we can use these to judge if prejudice will always be a part of our lives, which make the origins of prejudice very important for finding ways to reduce or rid our world of …show more content…
A few main aspects of this are socialization, social norms, and economic competition. The socialization process is: “the process in which individuals acquire the values, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of their culture or subculture, including religion, nationality, and class.” This leads to big groups that usually have a sense of ethnocentrism, which will lead to prejudice. Economic competition shows how class can also be a big role on causes of prejudice as well as how people tend to be more hostile towards those when there security is threatened. An example of this is an upper class family being afraid of being robbed by a few blue collar men. All of these aspects of sociological and psychological prejudice make one ask the question if prejudice will always be