The situation where a new child gets left out of the group activities by other children represents the consequences of prejudices and stereotyping within the group setting. Overall, group activities are prompt to have more commune psychological motifs and tendencies rather than individual behavior or face-to-face communication. Hence, the evaluation of psychological theories related to the aspects that motivate children to make the new kid feel left out will help determine the pattern’s consistency and find efficient solutions.
Primarily, prejudices are being formed out of the subconscious categorization in people’s minds. According to Amodio and Cikara (2021), the categorization always depends on the social context and the previous experiences of a person (p. 17.6). Following this idea, the perception of people and appropriate categorization can change over the course of life, as experiences and surroundings change simultaneously. This theory identifies that external factors majorly affect anyone’s image and a formal “category” in the eyes of other people.
Specific categorization impacts the way people perceive each other and therefore influences the development of numerous prejudices. In fact, prejudices are being triggered by specific social signals from various perspectives within a group setting (Amodio & Cikara, 2021). Essentially, the individual categorization in each person’s mind contributes to the massive judgment about a given thing, person, or concept. Hence, an active social environment contributes to the development of specific areas of categorization and therefore stimulates the relevance of prejudices.
However, the diversity of a group setting can influence the rates of preventing the development of solid prejudices. Prejudices are formed out of the specific patterns that people notice based on their experiences and bias. Nevertheless, the wide spectrum of people who could match certain stereotypes and biases in somebody’s head can have an opposite effect and reduce the impact of prejudice on a person’s judgment (Paluck et al., 2021). Based on this information, the context of a social group can be identified as highly influential in promoting or decreasing the prejudices based on the general dynamics within the group.
Group settings play a crucial role in the forming of categorization patterns and prejudices due to their direct influence on one’s identity. According to Brown and Pehrson (2019), participation in a group stimulates the manifestation of one’s social identity that often differs from the sense of identity when being out of the group context. Thus, a group setting evokes the general behavioral patterns within a given group as a way of maintaining a stable social dynamic and a context-based hierarchy in communication. Confirming these patterns is an act of reinforcing the categorization and a subliminal reason behind the development of specific prejudices.
Depending on the cultural context, the prejudices that are commonly distributed among different social groups vary significantly. For instance, Kende and colleagues (2018) suggest that each country and region’s specific cultural and historical backgrounds majorly determine the core features and the concepts exposed to general prejudice. Therefore, there are numerous tendencies related to prejudices across the globe, which means that the specific context-related group interaction is the main factor behind the development of a specific variation of prejudice.
The existence of multiple cultural points of view stimulates potential disagreement within the context of prejudices and further miscommunication between people. In fact, similarly to the case of the child from an immigrant family being left out of the group activities, immigrants are often exposed to a lack of empathy towards their point of view due to the established stereotypes and prejudices in the region (Volkan, 2018). Misunderstandings and negative judgments originate from the clash of prejudice and differences between the cultures. Hence, it is predominantly difficult for people within an established and influential group setting to empathize with a different point of view, which further stimulates the power of existing prejudices. Following this idea, the major reason behind the exclusion from a group setting of a child from an immigrant family can be their cultural differences and a lack of understanding.
Additionally, the establishment and maintenance of prejudices are affected by the nuances of the instrumental learning model. Within the context of prejudice, an effective scheme of “reward association” is represented by specific feedback that results from conforming to the group prejudice dynamics (Amodio and Cikara, 2021, p. 17.12). As an act of conforming to the prejudice bias evokes the sense of a greater acceptance by other members within the group, the relevance and power of social identity is being supported by the group recognition of the shared values.
Prejudice itself has a strong impact on the general life perception of a person, as it creates a solid prism of bias around them. As a matter of fact, prejudices and stereotypes affect seemingly independent concepts, such as face perception, emotions, decision-making, and moral judgments (Amodio & Cikada, 2021). Thus, the biases reinforced by the general social groups have a direct influence on the individual characteristics of a person and their self-evaluation as well as the basic social judgment.
Similar to the way the rate of the diversity of a group can significantly impact the authority of prejudices within it, the ability to understand a specific perspective can reduce the implications of biases. In fact, encouraging a deeper analysis and evaluation of a differing perspective results in a lower level of socially driven biases applied to the perception of other people, as it helps in developing one’s empathy (Simonovits et al., 2018). This way, the action of temporarily conforming to a consciously biased narrative stimulates a better understanding of the way the biases and prejudices generally work.
Following the presented information, an effective method to positively influence the excluded child’s situation would be to work with both parties and educate them on the matter of biases. The crucial knowledge that has to be communicated to the excluded child should be the socially accepted way to behave and present themselves in a given region. This way, a child will be able to adapt to the new environment by conforming to certain social standards. At the same time, the group of people that surrounds this child has to be taught about the influence of the biases on someone’s judgment. Hence, the children will become more aware of the possibility of different perspectives of life and will, therefore, be more likely to develop acceptance and tolerance to the differences. This way, the process of reducing the effect of bias and prejudice on people’s judgment has to be addressed from multiple perspectives with respect to individual biases related to the topic. In the end, as biases determine the majority of people’s perception of life, even the issue of reducing the impact of the prejudice is majorly affected by various established biases.
References
Amodio, D. M., & Cikara, M. (2021) The social neuroscience of prejudice. Annual Review of Psychology, 72(1), 439-469.
Brown, R., & Pehrson, S. (2019) Group processes: Dynamics within and between groups. John Wiley & Sons.
Kende, J., Phalet, K., Van den Noortgate, W., Kara, A., & Fischer, R. (2018) Equality revisited: A cultural meta-analysis of intergroup contact and prejudice. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(8), 887-895.
Paluck, E. L., Porat, R., Clark, C. S., & Green, D. P. (2021) Prejudice reduction: Progress and challenges. Annual review of psychology, 72, 533-560.
Simonovits, G., Kezdi, G., & Kardos, P. (2018) Seeing the world through the other’s eye: An online intervention reducing ethnic prejudice. American Political Science Review, 112(1), 186-193.
Volkan, V. D. (2018) Immigrants and refugees: Trauma, perennial mourning, prejudice, and border psychology. Routledge.