The Relationship Between Prejudice and Discrimination – Discrimination (PSY, SOC)

00:00 We’re going to bring forth the couple other terms now.

00:04 And see how they differentiate and how they’re related.

00:06 Prejudice is the unjustified attitudes towards others based on their social group.

00:13 This is attitude. You’re not actually doing anything you’re just thinking a certain way.

00:18 Your attitude is for example, we have here in this box, I don’t like people with tattoos.

00:24 That’s me choosing an attitude or a stance on an individual or group.

00:31 So people with tattoos, don’t like it.

00:33 Now, discrimination is a little bit different. This is where I usually involve a negative behavior towards others of that group that you have identified.

00:39 Now, I’m saying, “I don’t want to sit next to people with tattoos.” Now, I have an actual behavior attached to it. So I’m keeping them at a distance.

00:47 Why I don’t want to shake their hand. An actual action that would be discriminatory or discrimination.

00:53 So both prejudice and discrimination have a positive feedback with one of the meaning.

00:58 If you say, “I don’t like people tattoos.” Then you would go on to discriminate, Why I don’t want to sit next to people with tattoos and that further validates in positively reinforces the fact that I don’t like people with tattoos.

01:10 And you can see this goes back and forth, back and forth and you basically expand your bubble of discrimination.

01:16 So this can then turn into something even more dramatic.

01:21 And you can start to stereotype and say, “Well, I don’t like if you have tattoos.

01:25 I don’t want to sit next to them. I just… they’re all terrible and they’re all criminals.” Okay, we made a couple of leaps here. it starts with a small prejudice that Expanded, turn into discriminatory action, is now we stereotyped a group of individuals.

01:38 You can see how this quickly escalates and it’s all positively reinforcing.

01:43 This can snowball into something worse and worse. And this is how sort of in our time we’ve seen certain prejudice has turn into this large social movements or stereotypes against certain cultures and racist.

02:00 So both of these are influenced by social norms and the social networks.

02:04 If social norms in a certain areas say, well, tattoos are considered a little bit fringe.

02:10 And most people like the bulk or the majority the population does not have tattoos.

02:15 Therefore, those who do have tattoos are going against our social norm.

02:19 Therefore, we don’t like it. And then within your own social network if everybody is agreeing and saying, “Yeah, tattoos are terrible, people with tattoos are terrible.

02:26 I don’t ever want to sit next to them either and they are criminals.” This then expands and expands in the scope of discrimination and stereotyping increases and increases.

02:39 Now, let’s look at the impact of Power.

02:43 Power refers to the ability to control others. So you as an individual or you as a group, Do you have any power? So for example, political power, Do you have personal power? Do you have economic power? If you politically have power, you can help shape policy or laws.

03:01 If you have personal power or if you have a lot of wealth, these things can all determine how much influence you can have.

03:08 And that influence can involve creating some discrimination.

03:12 So individuals and groups can use this power to facilitate discrimination against those who have less power.

03:17 So say for example, you’re applying for that job that I said.

03:20 And you are a visible minority.

03:22 So you’re somebody that maybe gets discriminated upon based on the color of your skin.

03:26 Now, this escalates to the boss of the company. And all of the sudden, the boss of the company is going to say, “Well, no I don’t think we going to hire this person based on the color of their skin. This would probably a closed conversation.

03:39 But they have the power to decide who’s getting into the door? Who is getting in to this organization? Who is going to work in this company? And so by keeping certain individuals that based on discriminatory characteristics, so in this case color of their skin, they have now made this organization or this bubble aligned with what they want, which is to have just throwing this out say, colored skin versus White.

04:04 And this is a White-owned company.

04:05 They’re going to maintain that it’s white, they keep it white by keeping people of color out, okay.

04:10 or it could be vice versa maybe it’s a colored company and they want to keep Whites out.

04:13 And by doing so, they have continued the stereotyped, they have continued the discrimination but they have the power to do so.

04:22 Now, you couldn’t really flip that. So the person who was the visible minority can say, “Well, no, no, no you have to hire me. They have no power; they have no say because individual who’s the owner of the company has the power in that situation”.

04:35 Similar types of discrimination are seen in those with prestige as well.

04:39 So if ever really good reputation or you come from a class, a certain higher class.

04:45 so you know of the cast system or a hierarchal system in our society and this is linked up to socioeconomic status.

04:51 So if there are… if there is a lawyer and if there is a pen handler.

04:59 The lawyer carries a reputation, “Oh that’s Mr. Goldbloom.

05:05 And he is a very very prominent, very successful lawyer.

05:09 His family and generations before him had been lawyers.

05:13 and so that’s the Goldbloom family of Goldbloom and Goldbloom Law Firm”.

05:17 They have a name. And they might belong to a higher-class group within a social network of individuals. They now have the ability to continue this discrimination.

05:27 They might say, “Well, that panhandler you know he’s a panhandler because he is probably lazy and he’s probably pretty dumb.

05:36 So again, this individual have the facts to be able to say that “This person is really lazy?” “Well, no.” And so they are creating some prejudice, some discrimination and stereotyping of this person.

05:48 despite having the facts because they are looking from their ivory tower down because of that reputation, because of their class structure. They’re be able to say that.

05:58 And people will actually take that closer to fact than it just being an allegory.

06:04 They’ll say, “Well, Mr. Goldbloom he would know, he's so successful, he's a lawyer, he's high class.

06:10 He would probably know this things”.

06:12 And so again, they’re able to further that divide and that discrimination in maintaining that pull of power within themselves. And this is how overtime you can have certain subcultures within let’s say a city of the affluent people living in an affluent area and having affluent schooling because they’ve been able to use their power, prestige, to create this discrimination and to limit access to those outside of their circle.

06:41 So much of the classification is relative.

06:43 That’s another really important point of who are you comparing your power, wealth and status to? Now, if I was in the small town, and the town had 10,000 people.

06:53 and they’re mostly blue collar workers working in a factory.

06:56 But I’m the guy who owns the factory.

06:59 Now in that little town of Steelville, Nebraska, Ohio some place like that and I am the owner of the factory. I’m kind of a big deal, right? So I own the place, I walk around and my fancy fancy suit.

07:12 I got a brand new truck, and I can call some shots, and I can say certain things.

07:17 I don’t know this worker he can't come in here this is my bathroom I’m the owner.

07:20 You steel workers that work the line you’re pretty dirty, you’re lazy, get out of here”.

07:25 And now kind of the big deal right. Now in that situation, I do have power, I do have upper hand, I do have prestige because of that small community I’m higher up on the rank.

07:38 Now, that guy who owns the steel factory he goes to New York at the meeting of all steel factory owners that are meeting once a year.

07:50 And I just owned a little factory of 5,000 employees in a smaller town.

07:55 So in that town relatively speaking, I’m very powerful, I’m very wealthy, I have a lot of status.

08:00 But when I go to New York and at this meeting with all the other steel factory owners and there's guys who owned 20 factories and employ over a million people.

08:08 Those guys, they have a lot of power, they have a lots of wealth in comparison to me.

08:13 So it’s relative, right? So if you want to really flip it and look at the small town again.

08:18 And you look at the blue collar workers. In that small circle of blue collar workers, 5,000 working at that plant.

08:23 You might have some rooky, novices who just started, who just got out of steel workers school.

08:28 And you have the 20-year veteran who premature runs the show he's kind of like an informal thought leader within that group of steel workers.

08:34 He's going to have more power to make decisions and he's going to have more status.

08:38 So it’s all relative and who are you comparing yourself to? So those of higher status wish to maintain the status quo in some ploy, discriminatory action, and behaviors to maintain that.

08:48 So if I’m in that circle and I want to keep certain individuals out, I will continue to further and advertise that discriminatory behavior and say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah you want to keep those kind of guys out because they don’t think like we do or they’re very lazy or they’re untrustworthy.

09:01 And they have a tattoo, you don’t want that”.

09:03 And so by doing that, again they maintain and keep their bubble and keep their forward movement of their status going.