Every day we encounter different people, situations, without noticing ourselves, evaluate them and, often, it is not our own opinion, attitude, but prejudice imposed by society.
Prejudice plays an important role in the life of every person. They have an impact on perception, attitude to something, to someone.
Psychological sources of prejudice describe prejudice as a prejudiced attitude toward an individual, etc., based on her membership in a particular category or group. The main sources of prejudice are the social environment and the human family. First of all, parents instill in the child the attitude, on which his idea of others is formed, about himself. Growing up, a person does not revise some views imposed from childhood, and uses in adult life, in relations with others.
Types of prejudice
In society, it is common to distinguish between several variants of prejudice:
- Sexual. Gender prejudices related to gender. This is one of the most common prejudices. So, according to the survey, such gender prejudices men are used to refer to as common sense, stereotypes. Sexual prejudices include the belief that men are more successful in business or that female labor is estimated to be lower than that of men.
- National prejudices. This is a socially-psychological phenomenon, which is expressed by a distorting reality with respect to one race to another. Such prejudices are one of the forms of expression of ethnocentrism. They perform evaluation functions. Their functioning helps to preserve the social distance between representatives of various ethnic groups.
- Age. The problem with this kind of prejudice is that a person is perceived by others through the prism of stereotypes, expressed, for example, in the fact that young people believe that people of age can not engage in active living, and older adults believe that young people are irresponsible.
- Household. Prejudices relating to the attitude of the person to himself, to his own appearance or behavior (from which complexes arise), to events (belief in superstition, etc.), to food, etc.,
It is worth noting that any woman without prejudice, like a man, looks more attractive. After believing in various superstitions, trusting the majority opinion and refusing to form one's own point of view, for example, in relation to any nationality, one can look stupid, one can lose one's individuality.
Reason and prejudice never had a common foundation for the emergence, by nature, the human mind, consciousness is pure, but by allowing superstition to guide it, the individual pollutes his worldview.
When a person learns to observe, compare received information, reflect on it and analyze it, reinforcing it all with intuitive signals, and then combining it with the available knowledge, a person goes to a higher level of existence - a level of reasonable thoughtfulness. His life is freedom from prejudice.
How to get rid of prejudices?
You can clear your mind in several ways:
- Learn to separate the seeds from the chaff, develop creative thinking, combining the mind and feelings.
- The development of syncretic thinking (characteristic of children's perception).
- Do not evaluate events, people. Refuse categorical judgments.
- Develop the flexibility of thinking.
- Be able to change the criticality of self-criticism.
- Learn to look at reality from the standpoint of a successful opportunity to develop your abilities.
- Develop your intuition by establishing contact with your own self.
- Learn to listen to your inner voice.
- Find positive sides in the negative.
It should be noted that getting rid of prejudices, you cleanse your consciousness, your attitude to others, thereby improve the relationship in life.