Atiqa Victoria ::PREJUDICE::

A prejudice is a judgement or opinion formed before the facts are known. We all have our own prejudice and bias about people, things or events. It is this prejudice which will hinder us from being open-minded. We must be very careful that our preconceived ideas do not disregard facts or truth of the real issue. Our logical reasoning may go astray when we are prejudiced for or prejudiced againts.

When we are prejudiced for, we are inclined to favour a person or thing because of strong fondness or attachment; we may disregard facts that contradict the real issue. In this manner, when we are prejudiced againts, we let our emotions of suspicion, fear, intolerance, hatred, dislike and lake of knowledge about the issue bias our logical reasoning.

To be an open-minded person, we should know our own prejudice and bias in daily affairs, politics, race and religion, so that we can consciously control ourselves to be open-minded to look for the real facts and the truth of the matter, as shown in the following examples.

Example I:

Prejudice for

Rose is a good worker. She can tackle this new technical job.

This statement is biased for Rose because the boss knows that she is a good worker. The boss assumes that Rose, being a good worker will automatically qualify her to do the new technical job without (a) first asking Rose whether she can do the job; or (b) training in the new technology for the job.

Example II:

Prejudiced againts

.

John is useless. He cannot do a thing

This statement is biased againts John. No one is absolutely useless or cannot do a thing.

THE PLAIN JANE PREJUDICE

1. Researchers have found that personnel managers tend to select good-looking men or women for jobs. A spokesman from British Institute of Psychiatry says, “One firm shortlisted two girls, one who was intelligent but lacked perseverance, the other not very intelligent but hard working. Guess who got the job? The good-looking one who came first.”

2. “If a manager is looking for a secretary he will probably pick her more for her looks than qualifications, in the same way that he picks his wife, not for her cooking, but her beauty.”

3. But there are employers who discriminate againts a pretty girl for a top job because they believe she will be more interested in her social life than her career.

4. Worse, teachers are also prejudiced. When the children’s report was supposed to belong to a pretty child, they guessed he or she had a higher IQ and would do better at school than a plain child with the same report.

5. Sadly, we are more willing to to help accident victims if they are good lookers. Someone set up an experiment which actors pretended to collapse on train, it took more than hour for someone to help her- because of her ‘plain’ appearance.

6. Why we are so biased in favour of attractive persons? It’s believed we have a stereotyped idea of what these people are like. We imagined good-lookers are friendly, intelligent, confident and kind.

7.  Beauty’s advantages fade with age. Dr. Ellen Berscheid, who studied the happiness of middle age, found women who had been beautiful when young were not so happy as those who had been plain.

8. So at least many Plain Janes can look forward to late blossoming.