Concept in Definition ABC

Opinion formed without reason and a priori

It is designated with the term of prejudice to that judgment or opinion, almost always with a negative tendency, which is formed without reason Someone beforehand and without prior knowledge of the person or the issue being prejudged. Because a prejudice will occur when without having a thorough knowledge about an issue, or long before a suitable time has passed that report adequate knowledge on the subject, we express an opinion that has very little chance of being real or of represent the reality of a fact or of a person, since in reality it is still very, very little known as to give your opinion or as to be able to give a sentence on the matter.

For example, to believe that all Jews are greedy only because they have been made such a fame, one knows why and we alone and without asking ourselves if this is indeed the case, where does such a thing come from? belief, Yes he has fundamentals or not, we believe it, we give it as valid, without more and without less, and we contribute to its dissemination by agreeing every time someone affirms it or also saying it.

Or suppose that due to the fact of not having a comparable chronological age, to sentence that a 50-year-old man will never be completely happy with a 25-year-old girl due to the number of years that separate them. That is, it may happen that the couple does not work out in the end, but surely age is not the trigger for the breakup, a bad coexistenceThey can be a deception, because how many examples reality offers us about couples that are well matched in terms of age that do not last over time even though they are the same age.

A limiting inclination that does not allow us to know

And thousands of other examples that we could continue to mention… Definitely, prejudice is a typically human behavior and without a place undoubtedly the worst, because it closes us, limits us in our considerations and most of the time it can lead us to commit a great mistake with someone or something because we prejudged and did not take the time to know the subject or the person in depth.

Generally, when an issue is affirmed without having the proper evidence or documentation that testify that it really is so we will be faced with a prejudice, as we said, and then reproducing a stereotype.

Association with discrimination

In most cases the way of think in which prejudices fundamentally prevail is closely linked to the discriminationIn other words, prejudice and discrimination make up an association, an alliance, which normally go hand in hand. Because as we mentioned above, in our first sketch on the subject, prejudices often be very negative, that is, it is almost impossible to come across a bias that raises a question positive.

Prejudice, as is clear from the preceding example we gave about the Jews, will tend always to foster division, the separation between people, because if I maintain that Jews are greedy people, then what I do in addition to a capricious and fanciful generalization is to contribute to make them a bad name among the rest of the people who listen to my comments and who until that moment were unaware of the situation, but I warn them and put doubts, I sow rancor.

According to the Psychology cognitive biases turn out to be distortions that will alter the way in which people perceive reality.

Therefore, prejudices are seriously harmful when it comes to promoting or developing social and friendship ties between people, and even, many times, when rejecting evidence what we do is block the true knowledge of things, what we talked about before, unfortunately, we limit ourselves in one consideration because the Prejudice beats us and we do not end up knowing the truth of things that surely is totally different from what we think or what they made us believe and we we decided to do it.

The negative effects on the social fabric

Now, what we cannot ignore when addressing this issue is that it is on the social level that the most serious consequences tend to occur. of prejudices, even reaching limits of physical damage that will produce a crack that is difficult to bridge between the members of a society.
Society is made up of different social actors who hold different ideas, status social, ethnic origin, among others, while, if we let ourselves be won over by the prejudices that exist around races, religions, sexual conditions, confrontations will occur that will end up breaking social harmony and sowing hate.
It is undoubtedly in this aspect that teachers, parents, among others, must work more, to train people free of prejudice.