Manage Prejudice at Work

Prejudice in the Work Place

To understand and manage prejudice in the workplace you will first have to make sure you understand what prejudice means. The word prejudice refers to prejudgment, i.e. making a decision before knowing the relevant facts or lack of knowledge of individual(s) or thing(s). Prejudice is not only a negative implication but can be a positive implication as well.

Prejudice at will not get the team to function positively. It will cause the team to have unnecessary stress and this could cause the incident to evolves into something very ugly and possibly life threatening.

To manage prejudice you should labeled it as wrong and each one of you staff should know this. If someone offended, it should be brought to their attention so that they could retract their attitude or remark. This should be done as soon as you come to know of an incident in your team.

It is clear that prejudice can have a harmful impact in the workplace, a team and/or an individual. Prejudice will have a negative impact on bottom line if not treated soon.

The first psychological research conducted on prejudice occurred in the 1920s. This research was done to attempt to prove white supremacy. One article from 1925 reviewing 73 studies on race concluded that the “studies take all together seem to indicate the mental superiority of the white race”.[3] This research among others led many psychologists to view prejudice as a natural response to inferior races.

In the 1930s and 1940s, this perspective began to change due to the increasing concern about anti-Semitism. Theorists of this time viewed prejudice as pathological and looked for personality syndromes linked with racism. Theorist Theodor Adorno believed prejudice stemmed from an authoritarian personality. Adorno described authoritarians as “rigid thinkers who obeyed authority, saw the world as black and white, and enforced strict adherence to social