Prejudice
We hold unfavorable attitudes toward a group and its members without sufficient justification.
Prejudice is an affective feeling toward a person based on their perceived group membership, often negative and unjustified by actual experience with the individual. Unlike stereotyping (cognitive) or discrimination (behavioral), prejudice is the emotional component of intergroup bias. It can be conscious or unconscious and persists because in-group favoritism and out-group derogation serve social identity needs.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life New Neighbor Assumption A resident feels immediate discomfort when a new neighbor belonging to a different demographic moves in, despite having no actual negative experience with that person — the feeling stems from prejudice toward the group.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
When a friend suggests trying a restaurant owned by people from a specific culture, a person immediately says 'no thanks, I know the food will be bad' without having ever tried it.
A person consistently chooses mainstream, well-known brands for all purchases, believing that products from small, independent makers—especially those started by young entrepreneurs—are 'unreliable' or 'amateur.'
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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