Letter to 'Twelve tips for responding to microaggressions and overt discrimination'

Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who...

Aligning actions are communicative strategies individuals employ to maintain social harmony and preserve personal identity in the face of potential disruptions to social norms. These actions are particularly important in managing social impressions when one's behavior might be seen as inappropriate, incompetent, or morally questionable.Types of Aligning ActionsThe three principal types of aligning actions are disclaimers, accounts, and apologies.DisclaimersDisclaimers are preventive; they are...

Humans engage in aggression when they seek to cause harm or pain to another person. Aggression takes two forms depending on one’s motives: hostile or instrumental. Hostile aggression is motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain; a fight in a bar with a stranger is an example of hostile aggression. In contrast, instrumental aggression is motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain (Berkowitz, 1993); a contract killer who murders for...

When we hold a stereotype about a person, we have expectations that he or she will fulfill that stereotype. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true. When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations. This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs. Research by Rosenthal and...

The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Have you ever fallen prey to the confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias?

The halo effect is a cognitive bias in which an individual's overall impression influences judgments about their specific traits. This psychological phenomenon leads people to associate positive characteristics with those they perceive as generally good and negative characteristics with those they view as bad. This effect is particularly influential in social perception, professional evaluations, and decision-making processes.The Psychological Basis of the Halo EffectThe halo effect is rooted...