Why are people prejudiced?

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Why are people prejudiced?
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Short people got no reason to live. Randy
Newman
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• 140 JOB-PLACEMENT OFFICERS were asked to choose
  between 2 applicants.
• identical qualifications, but
• one was described as 61, the other as 55

102 judged the taller applicant to be better
qualified.
1 preferred the shorter.
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5,000 MEN with 25 years experience in different
careers How much money were they making?
Men who are 56 or 57 Men who are 60
or 61
The taller men were earning 2,500 more.
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• Starting salaries of male librarians
• Men divided into two ways
• Over 6 and under 6
• Top half of their class academically and bottom
  half

Salary difference was 3 times greater in the
short/tall comparison.
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U. S. Presidential Elections
Only two presidents have been shorter than
average for males of their time. (James Madison
and Benjamin Harrison) Since 1904, the shorter
candidate has been elected only once.
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Heavier women earn less Sample of 1,442 white
female workers Heavier women (65 pounds heavier)
earn 7 less.
But . . . this was not true for African-American
or Hispanic women.
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Morals
1. Prejudice may be unconscious.
2. We are very good at making up objective
reasons to justify our prejudiced judgments.
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Stereotypes

• Jews
• Gays
• African-Americans
• Women

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Like other ethnic groups, Southerners have
differed from the national norm they have been
poorer, less well-educated, more rural,
occupationally more specialized. They also
differ culturally in important respects and
their political behavior has been distinctive.
Although Southerners are not usually identifiable
by name or appearance, their accent usually
serves as an ethnic marker. . . . They are seen,
and see themselves, as less energetic, less
materialistic, more traditional and conventional,
more religious and patriotic, more mannerly and
hospitable, than other Americans. John Shelton
Reed, in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic
Groups, ed. Stephen Thernstrom (Harvard
University Press, 1980), 944-45.
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All men are created equal . . . Thomas
Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776)
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He the King has waged cruel war against human
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights
of life and liberty in the persons of distant
people who never offended him, captivating and
carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere,
or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare,
the opproprium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare
of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain.
Determined to keep open a market where MEN should
be bought and sold, he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative
attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable
commerce. Thomas Jefferson, draft of the
Declaration of Independence
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The Principle of Equality
Individuals are to be treated in the same way.
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The Principle of Equality
Individuals are to be treated in the same way
unless there is a relevant difference between
them.
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Relevant Differences
Whether a difference is relevant is a matter
for rational assessment.
Whether a difference is relevant depends on
the type of treatment in question.
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Criteria of Relevance
The Ability to Benefit Individuals may be
treated differently if there is a difference in
their abilities to benefit from (or to be harmed
by) the type of treatment involved.
Desert Individuals may be treated differently
if there is a difference in what they deserve.
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Two Assumptions
1. People in one group will often have something
to gain by treating members of another group
differently.
2. Everyone accepts the Principle of Equality.
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Stereotypes supply the (fictitious) relevant
differences needed to make the mistreatment of
individuals consistent with the Principle of
Equality.
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• HOW STEREOTYPES ARISE
• I have something to gain by treating the members
  of another group differently than the way in
  which I want my own group treated.
• Therefore, I am motivated to treat them
  differently.
• But, I believe in the Principle of Equality.
• Therefore, I cannot treat them differently unless
  there is some relevant difference between them
  and me.
• But, no such differences exist.

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• This means that, if I am to treat them
  differently, I must persuade myself that there
  are such differences.
• So I persuade myself. To make it easier to
  persuade myself, I draw upon facts, distorting
  and exaggerating them.
• And thats where the stereotypes come from.

(And thats also why they are so hard to
dislodgebecause if a person abandons these
beliefs, he/she will also have to abandon the
conduct that the beliefs justify.)
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(The End)