A prejudice is the development of a series of judgments and concepts of certain people, which implies a thought adopted in advance and without adequate knowledge, generally of a negative nature. The term prejudice derives from the Latin praeiudicium, which means judged beforehand. In psychological terminologies, this is an action of the mind in an unconscious way that distorts perception, that is, it is the opinion prevailing on something about which it is incorrectly aware.
Prejudice creates a report on the groundlessness of judgment and affective expression. Allport determined that the expression "speculating badly about other people" should be conceived as an elliptical term, which involves feelings of contempt or resentment, fear and hatred, as well as different forms of hostile behavior, as well as speaking against some people, make any kind of discrimination against them or lash out with violence. In the daily routines of the subjects, prejudice is applied based on evaluative assumptions based on habits, traditions, stories and other lessons learned during the processes of identity formation.
The psychologist Gordon Allport did not include the probability of some positive appreciation in his statement. His studies were carried out with the purpose of working as pedagogical material for university students and the general public pertinent to the issue of ethnic discrimination, especially that suffered by Jews and American blacks, for which it is considered an important content in psychology social, because it states that racism comes from imaginary fears, which transports us to a positive point of view that it is possible to eliminate prejudice in order to live in a more harmonious society.
Prejudices could be caused by racial, social, gender, among many others. Many times, prejudices are based on stereotypes, young people are not responsible, nerds do not know how to socialize, the elderly are forgetful, blondes are dumb, Germans are cold, Jews are greedy, etc.
This kind of way of thinking is related to discrimination. Prejudices are usually always negative, someone or something is rejected before possessing enough discernment to question it with motives and they incite division between people.
