An Observation On The Meaning of Prejudice

People struggle with their feelings and their pronouncements regarding their perceptions of others and especially of groups of others. Most of us do this with the hope that the internal expression and the external expressions will be more or less the same and both will be at least somewhat positive. Some people, politicians for example, do not seem to be especially troubled by such alignment, but most of us do struggle with being fair and honest. The rationalization of emotions is often impossible when dealing with a matter such as prejudice, but the best of us continue to try. We all try to keep from disclosing what our true inner feelings are if they are less than noble (i.e. socially unacceptable by ourselves and especially our peer group) and less than completely flattering to every group that comes up in a conversation. This is stressful and yet is a good struggle to engage upon. The effort can increase one’s maturity, which is something that deserves our time and energy.

The feelings that one has are often a product of very coincidental but meaningful experiences having to do with good and bad times with one or more of the various groups with which we come into contact. If one were robbed by an African-American, for example, that experience can naturally effect our view toward African-Americans. If the service you receive is especially pleasant in a Chinese restaurant, this too may lead to a particular point of view. Of course watching and listening to our parents and our friends have also had a profound impact upon our view of the others. Very few people who are trying to align the internal and external expressions of their feelings would not be affected by such experiences. In fact, one can argue that not being influenced by such exposure would itself be seen as odd distancing from one’s experiences.

There are many reasons why the alignment of these internal and external feelings is difficult, but one reason, I believe, is because people do not understand what the term prejudice really means. The relevant Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions are: “a (1): preconceived judgment or opinion (2): an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b: an instance of such judgment or opinion c: an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.” These definitions put a great deal of stress upon the information one does not have about a group through use of such words or phrases as “preconceived”, “without just grounds”, “sufficient knowledge”, “an irrational attitude.” That is important, but it is not, in my opinion, the primary place where people go wrong in their sense of prejudice.

Of course, some people do not have very good information about the group towards whom they hold a strong positive or negative opinion, although this could be rectified with some effort. Difficulty obtaining relevant and accurate information is made somewhat more challenging because the data are sensitive and sometimes even the definition of the group is unclear. For example, how do I know who I really mean if I think about Hispanics or about African Americans or about Jews? What groups were the people I met a member of? For example, a close relative of mine wondered about a person we frequently saw on TV was a Jew. It was only years later that I found that they were actually Italian. This difficulty is now expressed by the acknowledgment that people want choices as they characterize themselves as members of multiple groups simultaneously. One might decide that they are most comfortable being characterized as a member of the African-American, Hispanic, Jewish group, for example and this is now even encouraged by some surveys that say “Choose all that apply” or something like that in their instructions. The problem of defining the group and its membership is a real issue, and deserves some attention, but again this is not the most serious issue, in my mind.

Things were simpler when we had to pick just one group and stick with it, although the current system is a lot more honest. Also, of course the rules that are used for such self-report affirmations are very unclear to most of us who come from ambiguous backgrounds. For example I recently found that I could join a group to learn how to play bagpipes if I am Scottish. That presents no problem for me. Being a mongrel has its advantages and my cousin the family genealogical history expert (or gynecological expert, as my aunt once clarified the endeavor to trace ones background), says I have considerable Scottish heritage to claim if I should want to do so. But, again, this is important, but not the really big problem with the concept of prejudice.

In statistics there are two very basic terms that describe data about almost any matter of interest and these are the mean and the variance. The first term, the mean, has to do with the average characterization that can be applied to a group and various measures (mean, mode, and median, for example) provide indications of that, although differences in these measures are uninteresting with regards to the point of this piece. The second term, the variance, has to do with the accuracy of that average as it is used to represent or be applied to the whole of the group of interest. In other words, how much variability is there within the group? If there is a lot, then the mean is not very representative of all the members of the group and this is typically the case. Fortunately for nearly all of us, our persona shown to the outside world is really a mixture of characteristics. For example, it may be true that generally we are unkind, but occasionally we might be very kind or generally we are frugal but occasionally we are very generous. In other words using the mean to characterize a group with variance among its members is a risky matter, but even characterizing a person can be a risk. In other words, a group, on average, may be unkind, but some members of the group can be quite kind.

It is this lack of realization that individuals and especially groups have this almost inevitable variability that causes one to worry about engaging in prejudice. In short, it is the failure to recognize the existence of variance that gets us into special trouble with the idea of prejudice. For example, let us suppose that you dislike African-Americans because you were robbed by a member of that group. If you do some homework, you will discover that such an occurrence is not as unlikely as we might wish it to be. But here comes the importance of the fundamental statistical concepts of the mean and the variance. Feeling a negative attitude toward the average behavior of a group is often justified and hence not really prejudiced. This sort of judgment of the average of any particular group might be justified by the data or the experience that one has. That does not mean that the members of the group we are considering are all like that negative characterization of the average member. In other words, there is a variance in nearly all groups’ behavior. Some are below the mean and some are above, some are very kind and some are not. The recognition and acceptance of this essential variability is the important step to being “unprejudiced.”

It is this acceptance of the variance of the people within groups that is the check on our natural reaction to a negative experience or to seeing some unpleasant, but true data about a group. One can examine all the data one wishes to obtain and conclude that your negative perception is correct for the average, but that does not make you prejudiced if you recognize that variability exists in every group. It is this essential variability that must always be kept in mind and must become the source of the external display of our feelings as well as the internal beliefs that we hold.

The interesting thing about this concept is that it applies to the outsider and makes a lot of sense out of what we see in others, but it also applies to the people inside the group. Most group members like to think of themselves as different (and better) in some way. For examples, Blacks may think of themselves as better athletes or Jews and Asians may think of themselves as better students. No matter your view of your group, it is still helpful to remember that variance exists and some overlap with members of other groups is inevitable. This concept can help to ground you in a way that might prevent too much conceit or too much self-pity. Variance goes in all directions at once with some members higher and some lower than the average of any other group. Keeping the group idea in perspective is critical to lowering the excesses of any beliefs one entertains about superiority or inferiority. The place of the individual becomes the critical consideration, although it is also quite acceptable to recognize that data about the average of a group are neither irrelevant nor determinative.