Prejudice

Prejudice is a negative evaluation of a social group or an individual that is based on the individual's group membership. Prejudice is the negative affective component in attitudes, and it can set the stage for discrimination—differential treatment toward members of groups that are the targets of prejudice. Prejudice can be overt and conscious and is widely recognized in this form. But it can also be subtle, and people can be mostly unaware that they harbor negativity toward some groups. Prejudice can affect close relationships at every stage of their development, whether it is prejudice by race, gender, status, weight, religion, ethnicity, accent, political attitude, hobby, or even zip code. Most of the research in this area has focused on race, religion, and gender, and these are the prejudices that are most likely to be important in relationships. Prejudice affects attraction between potential partners, relationship formation and maintenance, and the type and length of relationships. It can lead to stress, conflict, and even relationship dissolution. Close relationships, in contrast, can reduce or even eliminate prejudice.

This entry defines prejudice and traces its effects on close relationships. It begins with relationship formation, follows the course of relationships, and ends with the role that relationships can play in the reduction of prejudice.

Initial Contact

Prejudice can prevent people from forming friendships and romantic relationships. When these prejudices are overt, their effects on relationships are straightforward: People neither initiate nor prolong relationships with people they hate. But prejudice often affects people's behavior without their awareness, and unconscious prejudice can even prevent relationships from developing. Because these effects are subtle and outside of awareness, they might be harder to detect, are often expressed in a way that people don't perceive as prejudice, and might be more resistant to change.

Relationships begin with an initial contact, often face to face. Proximity and similarity are two major factors in attraction and relationship formation. As a result, within-group contacts are more likely to occur than between-group contacts. The foundation of within-group relationships is based on segregation. Similar people meet each other because they find themselves in the same places: neighborhoods, schools, universities, sporting events, e-mail listservs, Internet chat rooms, or social networks like Facebook. This lowers the initial chances of people from different groups interacting and forming a relationship. There are other reasons that people tend to have less interaction and form fewer relationships with minority and stigmatized groups members, including: (a) the smaller number of minority members leads to a lower likelihood of initial contact, (b) the geographical distribution of minority members and physical segregation, (c) language and cultural differences can make interaction between members of different groups cumbersome, (d) exposure to peers' prejudice, and (e) anxiety based on unfamil-iarity with outgroup members.

Anxiety is an especially influential obstacle to the initiation of new relationships. Because members of one group are often anxious about interactions with members of other groups (e.g., they lack knowledge of how to act in such an encounter, they may have different cultural expectations, or they may anticipate hostility from the outgroup), such relationships are less likely to be initiated. Anxiety makes people less willing to form close relationships across racial, religious, linguistic, or other cultural boundaries. Anxiety may also lead to awkwardness and avoidance—even in the absence of prejudice—which in turn may lead to the perception that someone is motivated by prejudice. With a realistic concern about encountering prejudice, one might interpret awkwardness and discomfort as signs of prejudice, leading him or her to withdraw.

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