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Subtle Prejudice

 

 

This activity is designed to create awareness of how subtle beliefs and behaviours can affect social interactions in everyday life. This activity is meant to evoke thought and reflection about situations where race, gender, sexuality, disability, weight, and age can affect interactions. Students can think about whether their stereotypes and attitudes influence their own and others’ behaviour.

 

This activity works best with a class size of 30 or fewer, but it could be modified for a larger class by having the instructor rotate among the groups while they discuss the topic or by having teaching assistants facilitate discussion in smaller groups.

 

Instructions:

 

Each participant receives a questionnaire and rates each situation from 1 = very comfortable to 5=very uncomfortable. Each participant should then sum all the points per section and record the score for each section on the worksheet. After students review their scores, they answer the review questions individually; a group discussion based on the review questions follows.

 

Students might find some of the questions do not apply to them; if so, they can write “N/A” and adjust their total score.

 

(Use Questionnaire)

Discussion Questions

 

  • On which section did you score the lowest? Highest? Or are all your scores similar? Why do you think that happened? Do you feel surprised, disappointed, or satisfied by your results? Why?

 

  • Think about your own social group memberships. How do you think the answers for each section would be different for dominant group members (e.g., a White person answering the questions in Section A or a heterosexual answering the questions in Section C) compared

  • to minority group members (e.g., a disabled person answering the questions in Section D)? Explain your reasoning.

 

  • Think about your friends and family and how they might have completed the questionnaire. Do you think their responses would be similar to or different from yours? Why?

 

  • What experiences have you had that may have contributed to the way you answered the questions?

 

  • What does it mean if someone reports feeling uncomfortable in the situations described on the questionnaire?

 

Does it suggest that the person is biased against certain social groups?

 

Why or why not?

Credit Authors: Khyrstin L. Chance and Nicole Szoko Ball State University,  Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology

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