Chapter Eleven: Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination

Prejudices are attitudes, mainly negative, towards a group of people, simply from being from that group. Stereotypes are beliefs about people, based on their group membership, their appearance, etc. Both prejudices and stereotypes lead to discrimination, which are unjustified behaviors directed towards people due to their membership, physical appearance, etc (Kenrick, 374-5).

In-group bias is the inclination to favor your group over the out-group. This can involve who gets the resources in an area, but it can also deal with partiality towards certain people. Out-group homogeneity is the perception that everyone in the out-group has very similar if not the same characteristics. This can be seen in the saying, "They all look the same to me" (Kenrick, 380,395).

This clip from The Daily Show has excellent examples of prejudices and stereotypes about both Americans and Canadians. Ed Helms talks about how many Americans, to avoid discrimination from other countries, may act as Canadians. Discrimination in this case may be the act of being treated badly by other people from other countries, the act of being denied certain things because you're from America, etc. The idea that many people in other countries dislike Americans is a prejudice, because they dislike a group of people for being from America. Also, as the clip pointed out, many people from other countries hold stereotypes about Americans, such as they are dumb, arrogant, and bullies. The prejudices of Canadians that Helms touches on are a dislike for being weak. The clip also discusses a stereotype of Canadians, that they are all docile and boring.

This clip from The Daily Show also illustrates in-group bias and out-group homogeneity. Both the Canadian man and Helms thought that their "group" was the best. They also subsequently exhibited perceived out-group homogeneity by saying things such as, "Like a true Canadian, I'll have to thaw out my balls" and "Are you sure you aren't American, because you're being a bit of a d*ck about this." The in-group bias and out-group homogeneity most likely feeds into the stereotypes of the other groups.