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Psychology vocabulary · Social Psychology

Prejudice

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/ˈpredʒədɪs/nounCore term

In psychology, prejudice means: A negative attitude or feeling towards people because they belong to a particular group, formed without enough knowledge or experience of them as individuals.

In Turkish: önyargı

How it is used

Studied in social psychology together with stereotypes and discrimination, and in research on contact between groups. People hold, show or reduce prejudice, and it can be explicit or implicit.

Example sentences

  1. Positive contact between groups is one of the best-studied ways of reducing prejudice.

  2. Some participants showed implicit prejudice even when their explicit attitudes were positive.

Common collocations

  • reduce prejudice
  • implicit prejudice
  • prejudice against
  • intergroup contact
  • stereotypeA simplified, widely shared belief about the characteristics of people in a particular group, applied to individuals regardless of who they really are.
  • attitudeA fairly lasting evaluation of a person, group, object or idea that combines beliefs, feelings and a tendency to act in a positive or negative way.
  • social identityThe part of a person's self-concept that comes from belonging to social groups, such as a nation, profession, team or religion, and from the value attached to that membership.
  • cognitive biasA systematic error in thinking or judgement that makes people depart from logic or evidence in predictable ways, such as confirmation bias.

More terms: Social Psychology

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