Abstract
The USA has a long history of struggling to overcome issues of racism and prejudice. Despite progress that has been made over the last two centuries, institutionalized prejudice and discrimination continue to threaten the moral fabric of the nation and the democracy itself. This chapter examines the nature of bias in current American society. The first half provides examples of the effects that discrimination has on victims within the educational environment, including at both the university level and in public schools. It also describes how social media has become a weapon for White Nationalists to attack people of color and those who may seek to rectify issues of diversity. The second half of the chapter describes multiple overarching theories that may explain why humans develop ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation. These theories include Intergroup Contact Theory, Social Identity Theory, Terror Management Theory, Realistic Group Conflict Theory, and Tajfel’s Minimal Group Effect. We argue that two ways to combat the spread of prejudice are via education and through increased cross-cultural interactions, though researchers must continue to study the issue to find more solutions to this complex problem.
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Cuevas, J.A., Dawson, B.L. (2022). The Nature of Bias: Effects of Institutionalized Prejudices and Theoretical Explanations for Its Development. In: Akande, A. (eds) Handbook of Racism, Xenophobia, and Populism. Springer Handbooks of Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13559-0_13
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