DISCRIMINATION: CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES AND HOW TO COMBAT IT - ECONOMÍA - 2025

The discrimination is behavior directed at someone just because they belong to a particular group. It is an observable behavior, it refers to manifest acts of people towards members of groups.

Two of the most widespread types of discrimination are racism when this behavior is directed towards a racial group and the person who carries it out is called racist. And sexism when it is based on sex and the person who exercises it is called sexist. Usually it is stereotypes and prejudices that lead to discrimination.

Prejudice is defined as an attitude, usually negative, towards members of a group. It is the evaluation of someone based on their race, sex, religion or simply by belonging to a group other than their own.

Stereotypes are the beliefs that the members of a group share a particular characteristic, they can be positive or negative. They represent the knowledge that is had about the members of certain groups, although it is known that this knowledge is false. For example, older people are weak, Americans are obese, or Germans are not nice.

Causes of discrimination

Numerous investigations have been carried out to study the concept of discrimination and its possible causes. Different factors have been found, each one of them is sufficient but none is necessary, so that discrimination ends up being produced: motivational, socio-cultural, personality and cognitive.

Next, we will take a closer look at what each of these factors and their different components consist of.

-Motivational factors

From this perspective, discrimination is the result of tensions, emotions, fears and needs of the subject. This behavior serves to reduce negative emotional states or satisfy basic needs. Within the motivational factors we can distinguish:

Frustration and scapegoats

As defined by Berkowitz, interference in the achievement of goals (frustration) produces an emotional activation (anger) that sometimes culminates in aggression.

The scapegoat theory holds that life's various frustrations can generate displaced aggression that reduces and vent this level of frustration. Often the targets of displaced aggression are members of groups to which we do not belong.

The theory of social identity

This theory indicates that we are motivated to maintain an overall positive evaluation of ourselves that is determined by personal identity and social identity. Personal identity is based on personal achievements and how we value them in comparison to others.

On the other hand, social identity is based on belonging to certain groups. We usually assign a higher value to the groups we belong to and therefore we take it away from the groups we are not part of.

In this way, by favoring the perceptions of our groups and despising the groups to which we do not belong, it improves our social identity.

-Sociocultural factors

Some researchers point out that discrimination, like prejudice, are learned. This learned information usually comes from three different sources:

Parents or reference persons

In a study conducted in the 1950s by Bird, Monachesi and Burdick, they found that nearly half of the white families they interviewed had forbidden their children to play with black children.

In addition, these parents used to place special emphasis on any news of criminal acts of this group to demonstrate that they were right about this prohibition.

As a result, another study conducted in the 1990s by Rohan Y Zanna, concludes that the levels of racial prejudice of parents and children coincide to a large extent. Another consequence of this discriminatory factor is that children from different countries or regions of the same country learn to hate different ethnic groups.

The mass media

Although in recent years it has been tried not to transmit prejudice or discrimination through these media, even today sexist or racist attitudes can be seen in advertisements, television programs, etc. although in a more subtle way or that goes more unnoticed than a few years ago.

-Personality factors

Different studies have concluded that there is an authoritarian personality type, and that the most authoritarian individuals tend to be more racist. In this way, it has been shown that personality factors can also influence whether a person uses discrimination or not.

Like the others it is not a determining factor. It may happen that an individual has an authoritarian personality but never exercises discrimination.

-Cognitive factors

The belief that a group has negative characteristics generates dislike towards it and therefore discriminatory behaviors. The main component in this case is negative biases about that group. For example, a fundamental aspect of the Nazi campaigns against the Jews was the negative propaganda they spread about them.

In this way they justified the arrests and subsequent murders. They showed the Jews as conspirators, dirty and dangerous and that therefore it was necessary to control them. The formation of these negative stereotypes that lead to discrimination can come from two processes:

Categorization

This process consists of placing a person, object or stimulus in a group. It is about making assumptions about the characteristics of that element that it shares with the other members of the group in which we are including it. This categorization is necessary to function on a day-to-day basis and on many occasions those assumptions that allow us to classify are correct.

But on other occasions the categorization is incorrect, and this usually happens mainly with human groups. We tend to attribute to all the members of a group the same characteristics that in turn make them different from our own group.

These prejudices are once again often learned from parents, peers, and institutions. They are also acquired through the experiences that have been lived with that group that is generalized to all members.

Selective information processing

On the one hand, people tend to see what we want to see. We pay special attention to information that confirms our expectations or stereotypes and we omit information that denies them.

Additionally, research has also shown that information consistent with these stereotypes is better remembered. In a study conducted by Cohen in 1981, participants were shown a video of a woman having dinner with his husband to celebrate his birthday.

When the subjects were told that the woman was a waitress, they recalled that in the scene she drank beer and had a television. When told that she was a librarian, they remembered that she was wearing glasses and was listening to classical music.

Their stereotypes about waitresses and librarians led them to remember only the data that was consistent with those beliefs.

Therefore, biases or errors when processing information strengthen negative beliefs or stereotypes about a group, even if they are erroneous.

Consequences of discrimination

We can list consequences of discrimination at different levels:

For the victim or target of discrimination

First, members who belong to a minority on which discrimination is exercised are objectively worse off than they would be if there were no such prejudices against them. They have a psychological, economic and physical impact.

Some studies have indicated that belonging to a minority can be a risk factor for developing some mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. In addition, members of minority groups have fewer jobs, have more difficulties in accessing a job, are positions of less prestige and have lower wages than members of the majority.

On the other hand, individuals who belong to minority groups are more likely to be victims of violence from subjects who are part of majority groups.

At the community level

Discrimination affects different areas of society, preventing in many cases their own growth due to a social fracture and prevents taking advantage of the benefits of diversity.

Furthermore, the group tends to be marginalized, contact with them is avoided and they are excluded from society. Usually this marginalization leads to more serious problems such as the formation of gangs that engage in illegal and criminal acts.

Negative attitudes

Discrimination also generates in people a series of negative attitudes and behaviors such as anger and aggressiveness against members who do not belong to their group.

On many occasions this leads to verbal and physical violence between members of different groups that can have very serious consequences such as murder.

Ways to combat discrimination

As we have seen, discrimination has very diverse causes and that is why it seems difficult to eliminate discrimination and negative prejudices completely.

But there have been numerous studies aimed at reducing them and several techniques have been pointed out that may be useful for this.

Conscious control of stereotypes

At the end of the 1980s, Devine carried out a series of investigations that pointed out that even subjects who in principle do not have prejudices, sometimes had discriminatory behaviors or thoughts because there are a series of prejudices that are acquired unconsciously.

On the other hand, from these same investigations, it concluded that non-judgmental individuals consciously control their thoughts about the minority group, although they know what the negative stereotypes of that minority are, they do not believe in them and they do not use them to discriminate against them.

So this author indicates that the inculcated prejudices can be overcome, although it requires an effort of attention and time because it will not happen automatically. It is about consciously controlling the effects of stereotypes in one's own judgments about minority groups.

Legislation against discrimination

It seems difficult to get to eliminate discrimination through laws, because prejudices and stereotypes of a person cannot be controlled, just as their thoughts cannot be controlled.

But laws can ensure that members of minorities are not treated differently, and anti-discrimination laws reduce the frequency and severity of these acts.

Another function of laws is to establish norms and indicate what is acceptable and what is not in a society. To the extent that the individual understands that discrimination is not accepted in their environment, they will be less likely to undertake these acts.

Over time, non-judgmental attitudes are internalized, because these behaviors become routine, non-discrimination becomes a habit. Do not stop exercising for fear of the laws if not because the person already understands it as a behavior that is not correct.

Contact between majority and minority groups

As Pettigrew asserts, the contact hypothesis states that contact between members of different groups leads to more positive attitudes towards each other. This contact will help people from the majority group to verify that the stereotypes that exist about the minority group are not correct.

Although it has also been seen that this contact has to have a series of characteristics to be effective against discrimination. These requirements are above all, that the context in which the encounter takes place is one of cooperation between the members of both groups and that the individuals have an approximate social position.

It is also advisable that this contact begins to occur at an early age because children can more easily modify their prejudices than adults who have been holding a certain belief for years.

Bibliographic references

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2. Worchel, S., Cooper, J. (1999). Social Psychology. Wadsworth Publishing Company.
3. Allport, GW (1954). The nature of prejudice. MA: Addison-Wesley.
4. Dovidio, JF (1986). Prejudice, discrimination and racism: Theory and research. New York.
5. Katz, PA, Taylor, DA (1988). Eliminating racism: Profiles in controversy. New York.
6. Zanna, MP, Olson, JM (1994). The psychology of prejudice: The Ontario symposium, vol. 7. NJ: Erlbaum.
7. Dovidio, JF, Evans, N., Tyler, RB (1986). Racial stereotypes: The contents of their cognitive representations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.