1. Prejudice and discrimination
Lesson objectives:
To learn and be able to:
• Answer an exam question concerning stereotyping
• Outline what is meant by prejudice and discrimination
• Explain Adorno’s study into authoritarian personalities
• Evaluate Adorno’s study into authoritarian personalities
2. Starter
• Read through the questions on your sheet
• Answer either ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ for each
one
• Count up how many you answered ‘agree’ to
3. What is meant by stereotyping? Refer to the
example above in your answer.
Exam style question
Boy A: I was peaking to my granddad the other day
on the phone and told him that I was going to start
supporting Milwall FC and I was going to watch
them play. He said he was worried that I would
change as a person.
Boy B: Why do you think he said that?
Boy A: Because he said he thought I was going to
turn into a football hooligan.
4. Prejudice
• An attitude, usually
negative, towards a
particular group of
people, based on
characteristics that are
assumed to be
common to all
members of the group
5. Examples
• All black people are good at basketball
• All unemployed people are lazy
• All Chinese people are clever
• All girls like pink
7. Examples
• Nazi’s mass murder of the Jews
• Not employing a woman on the basis of her
gender
• Sacking a man of 55 because he no longer fits
into the ‘young’ crowd at work
8. Adorno – authoritarian personality
• Prejudice happens because of
a person’s personality
• Certain personality types can
lead to a person becoming
prejudiced
• Interviewed former Nazi
soldiers at the end of World
War II
9. Key study
• A: to test the idea that a person
may be prejudice because of
their personality
• M: interviewed hundreds of
Nazi soldiers. Used a personality
scale (F-Scale, F stands for
Fascist)
• R: found a particular set of
characteristics, which they
called the authoritarian
personality
10. Authoritarian personality
• Negative towards those beneath them, obedient
towards those of higher status
• Rigid in their opinions
• Not willing to accept any new ideas or new
situations
• C: these characteristics make those who have
them likely to categorise people into ‘us’ and
‘them’ groups, seeing ‘us’ group superior
• People with this type of personality were more
likely to have had a strict upbringing
11. Evaluation
• Not all prejudiced people had harsh
upbringings
• Only some prejudiced people show
authoritarian personalities
• He found only a correlation between
authoritarian personality and upbringing
• Doesn’t explain why people are prejudiced
12. Exam questions
1. What is meant by the term prejudice (2)
2. What is meant by the term discrimination (2)
3. Explain what is meant by ‘authoritarian
personality’ (3)
4. Outline two criticisms of Adorno’s
explanation of prejudice (4)
