Why People Don’t Get Along
For many global cities and global societies inequalities are rooted in prejudice. It is the fundamental way in which people make sense of the world around them. People mentally organise different groups of people into categories. It is a way to reinforce their group privilege over another. Invariably, prejudice results from a fear of strangers or feelings of superiority over others. It is formed by an attitude towards a particular social group based on incomplete or mistaken information. Generalisations, oversimplifications, and stereotyping about a group based on prior assumptions can lead to faulty beliefs. It leads to discrimination and inequality. These inequalities can be experienced in the segregated spaces of the city as discussed a few blogs ago. Without understanding the nature of prejudice, any community engagement process will be doomed to failure. If we are to co-design public spaces for people to bridge between cultures, we need to understand the inherent ways people understand the ‘other’ so that these myths can be dispelled effectively before building a shared sense of place and co-designing a public space.
Some of the most well-known types of prejudice include racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, religious prejudice, and agism. A negative prejudice is when the attitude is hostile toward members of a group. A positive prejudice is when the attitude is unduly favorable toward a group. Groups that are the targets of prejudice may be distinguished by any one of several characteristics. Religion, ethnicity, language, social class, gender, physical abilities, age, or sexual orientation are forms of prejudice. Frequently they are distinguished by specific inherited physical characteristics such as skin colour. The way in which people categorise information tends to minimize differences between people within groups. The information exaggerates the differences between groups. People also tend to view members of ‘outside groups’ as being more homogenous than members of their own group, a phenomenon referred to as the ‘out-group homogeneity bias’. This perception that all members of an out-group are alike holds true of all groups, whether based on race, nationality, religion, age, or other naturally occurring group affiliation.
Prejudice is such a basic part of a person’s complex thought process that any one of many causes may be a factor. A person’s appearance or unfamiliar social customs of others may be factors. Prejudice exists not only at the personal individual level, but also at the collective societal level. All human societies have prejudice in some form and to some degree. In fact many societies have multiple prejudices both at the individual and group levels, therefore determining the cause of prejudice in any single person is difficult. Most people do not willingly reveal their prejudices or the reasons for them, if they are even aware of their prejudices at all. Some people may have become prejudiced through some traumatic event they experienced in their lives. Others are simply conforming to the society in which they live, expressing the same prejudices as parents, popular political leaders, employers, or the media.
As there are many causes of prejudice, there can be many forms of prejudicial expression, the most common of which is discrimination. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of people simply because they are different from the dominant group in society. Prejudice and discrimination cause inequality especially when minorities are readily identified.
Reversing Prejudice through contact
One of the basic rationales is that prejudice may be reduced as one learns more about different cultures. Placing people into contexts where they become more empathetic to members of other cultural groups is one method that has shown considerable success in reversing prejudice. By imagining themselves in the same situation, people are able to think about how they would react and gain a greater understanding of other people’s actions.
A number of hypotheses exist that examine the nature of inter-cultural relations. The most widely accepted is Allport’s ‘contact hypothesis’ based on the reconceptualization of cultural group categories. This approach reconceptualises ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups’ in a way that constructs collective categories to which people belong. It reduces prejudice and promotes positive attitudes towards the out-group under certain conditions. Allport claims that when people are given an opportunity to communicate with others, they are able to understand and appreciate different points of views involving their way of life. The key is to manage this communication and mediate any conflicts. Allport identifies 5 conditions for positive contact:
- Equal status: Both groups must engage equally in the relationship. Members of the group should have similar backgrounds, qualities, and characteristics. Differences in academic backgrounds, wealth, skill, or experiences should be minimized if these qualities will influence perceptions of prestige and rank in the group.
- Common goals: Both groups must work on a problem/task and share this as a common goal, sometimes called a ‘superordinate goal’, a goal that can only be attained if the members of two or more groups work together by pooling their efforts and resources.
- Intergroup cooperation: Both groups must work together for their common goals without competition. Groups need to work together in the pursuit of common goals.
Support of authorities, law or customs: Both groups must acknowledge some authority that supports the contact and interactions between the groups. The contact should encourage friendly, helpful, egalitarian attitudes and condemn in group-out group comparisons.
Personal interaction: The contact situation needs to involve informal, personal interaction with out group members. Members of the conflicting groups need to mingle with one another. Without this criterion they learn very little about each other and cross-group friendships do not occur.
The interaction cycle takes a more psychological needs approach to understanding the conditions for positive contact based on a person’s familiar internal world, their identity and values, as well as the unfamiliar interactions that lead to wider benefits:
- Grounding: interactions with close and familiar people that help confirm and consolidate a person’s identity and values
- Strokes: interactions with familiar but less close people that consolidate a person’s confidence as a member of a wider group
- Opportunity: interactions that open up to new people and that might lead to benefit for the person and for the other person
- Growth: interactions that open a person up to new people and that through discussion, debate and learning lead to the person achieving a new and enhanced understanding of the world to the extent that their identity and values are changed
Other theories for intercultural relations include the ‘opportunity hypothesis’. It contends that the occurrence of cross-cultural friendships increases as the opportunities for them increase in contexts like multicultural schools. When the proportion of minorities increases, or where there are several groups present, the opportunity to form cross-cultural friendships increases significantly.
In contrast there are theories that identify why people would not interact. ‘Similarity-attraction hypothesis’ claims individuals are more likely to prefer to seek out people with whom they share salient characteristics. The ‘culture-distance hypothesis’ predicts the greater the cultural gap between people the more difficulties they will experience interacting. Another theory is based on ‘civility towards difference’ where people may be offended by differences in physical abilities, beauty, skin colour and hair texture, dress style, demeanour, income, sexual preferences, etc., but will act in a civil manner. This form of appreciation of diversity is based on treating people universally the same. It can emerge from indifference to diversity rather than from specific appreciation of it. Others caution against the positive effects of regular contact in improving intercultural understanding and shifting prejudiced perceptions. Indeed, some studies have shown that stereotypes and racism towards cultural diversity can co-exist with daily interactions in diverse neighbourhoods.
In his detailed study of the cause of the Bradford Riots, Ted Cantle was the first to claim how different cultures were living parallel lives. He identified five forms of interactions that measured the health of cross-cultural relationships:
- Intra-associational: integrated and multiple identity. Associations are open to people of different backgrounds and facilitate interchange and cooperation within the organisation, and promote social cohesion
- Inter-associational: networked single identity. Associations represent separate and distinct interests on an inclusive and single identity with associations formed by networks of separate bodies and which is less desirable for social cohesion
- Social incidental: arising from everyday activities. Interaction between individuals meeting through shopping, traveling or leisure activities, at an individual level, with organisation
- Social organisational: arising from planned and organised activity. Interaction by participating in sporting, music, drama and arts, which involves group activities, generally organised around clubs and societies and desirable for bridging capital
- Structural cross-cultural contact: This will depend upon the extent to which schools and housing are segregated, employment opportunities are linked to particular groups, and market factors create divisions which militate against cross cultural engagement. The greater the segregation, the weaker the social cohesion
Promoting Values for Bridging Cultures
Several commentators have suggested that it is the horizontal relationship between citizens, residents and local people with each other at the scale of the neighbourhood which creates a wider sense of common interest. People need to share things in common in order to live together. Several factors, in particular, are critical:
- Trust: people must trust one another to comply with the rules
- Solidarity: people must still recognise the value of contributing to the common good even when they don’t directly benefit as a result
- Empowerment: People feel they have a voice which is listened to and are involved in processes that affect them. They have the power to take actions and initiate change themselves
- Participation: people take part in social and community activities
- Associational activity and Common purpose: people co-operate with each other through the formation of formal and informal groups to further their interests
- Supporting networks and reciprocity: People and organisations co-operate to support one another for either mutual or one-sided gain. An expectation that help would be given to or received from others when needed
- Collective norms and values: people share common norms and values. They tolerate and respect other people’s norms and values.
- Safety: people feel safe in their neighbourhood and are not restricted in their use of public space by fear
- Belonging: people feel connected to their neighbours and place
We know that public spaces are vitally important for that, because they are where people often encounter one another. These values, such as trust and solidarity, are often built partly through familiarity. The gradual breaking down of the barriers of ‘otherness’, and the recognition of shared interests and a common humanity between strangers builds familiarity over time. For the same reason, the places where people interact with the state plays an essential part in building people’s trust in the state. When it comes to diversity and change, particularly in communities which are experiencing tensions and rapid rates of mobility, trust becomes an essential element for building relationships.