Positive Prejudice

Positive Prejudice"Most of us might not even be aware how often we stereotype others. What’s the first thing you think when you see a teenager with sagging jeans and tattoos? What about an older man accompanied by a much younger woman? How about a migrant worker? A man with a turban? Do you prejudge? Do you form opinions of their character, work ethic, personality, intelligence, and trustworthiness?

Prejudice is defined as a favorable or unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. Prejudice can be the result of our experience and conditioning, but research in the field of neuroscience shows prejudice may be an innate trait — an unconditioned response that is not the result of learning.

It’s difficult not to prejudge. We are wired to quickly assess our environment and make flash assumptions and generalizations. These generalizations are essential because they allow us to predict, simplify, and categorize our world. This has undoubtedly served us well evolutionarily.

The problem, of course, is when we assign negative beliefs to people or groups of people unfairly, and when we categorize all of “them” as having similar characteristics — racism being the most extreme and disgusting form of negative prejudice.

This is all somewhat depressing, unless you think about it differently. If there’s not much we can do about immediately and automatically categorizing and creating stereotypes, who’s to say our stereotypes and prejudices have to be negative? Why can’t we create positive prejudices? It turns out, we can."

-Robert Pagliarini (The Power of Positive Prejudice)

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