Prejudice: biolocial, or cultural?

I beleive that it is both. I think that it is mainly taught dpending on the surroundings some one grows up in. But it is also natural to be questionable about someone elses differences(its human nature). Also traggic events can also take place causing the child to be very prejudice.(This is actualy what happens in American History X,because his dad is killed by a black man he is enfuriated and becomes racist, he even slanders blacks on the news and calls them the"N"word since we cant say it on this site) ne ways way off subject now so Ima shut up 4 a while(SO HIGH):wtf: :stoned: :hippy:

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Originally Posted by Skrappie

I too subscribe to the idea of prejudice being something that you learn, though i like to see thinking on both sides of the fence, and i was hoping this topic would bring about more people from various sides to a friendly debate, though ended up being one sided.

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Is this really a debated subject though? I still don't think we've seen a good example of what a biologically based prejudice would be...

for the purposes of education and understanding... can anyone give a good one?

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I still don't think we've seen a good example of what a biologically based prejudice would be...

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the school of thought comes from the fact that we naturally dislike and disturst some things that preform the same function often for no reason. If its a slight difference your mind adjusts to put it in a catagory of better or worse. A few people would argue since everyone displays bias that it is a biological function, and dislike for 'other' people without any logical grounding is cultural, but stems from a biological function.

I will explain my hypthothesis the best I can. Prejudice is biological. You point out some very good key arguments about compounding already existing simlpler functions.


The human mind has the need to survive and contains basic needs. As to every animal on this planet.
Physically: The need to eat
The need to mate
The need to expell fece;s
Physcologically: To accel (at least for humans, we can't just not do anything, the mind must be moving towards a goal or an idea at somepoint)
To succeed, to attain a mate etc etc

When anything interferes with that there is a "primal response" so to speak that lies within everyone no matter how civilized and polished by society one may be.

Anyways, I do not want to bore you so here is my conclusion. Human kind has a predisposition or an inclination or susceptibility so to speak to be ruthless (for back of a better word) in order to survive. All humans are inherently evil, something we must account for and try to fix given are abilities for idea's and the relm of thought and reason.

In addition, to adress the cultural idea theory.

Culture influences or may direct prejudice. But there does lay a tiny miniscuel amount of "primal prejudice" I like to call it born into everyone. If to drift over into religion it would be like "original sin". Something that is there, to some extent in everyone, like evil, yet were expected and very well able to maintain and controll it individually and can eventually almost go away.

I am done. I apologize for the rant. That is my two cents on the subject. I hope that I provided some service.

Peace and love~

Back when I lived in NH and went to high school there we had a class called Humanities, no english or social studies. They were combined to create the class. Well anyways, one of our class projects were too debate this exact topic. Half the class had to read "Lord of the flies" other half read "Fahrenheit 451". IMO humans are born neutral and are influenced by culture.

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Is this really a debated subject though? I still don't think we've seen a good example of what a biologically based prejudice would be...

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Biological Bases of Prejudice
Heiner Flohr

Our knowledge of the causes of social prejudice is insuflicient; conventional sociological and psychological approaches should be com plemented by a search for biological causes. Evolutionary theory can explain why there is a need for prejudices. The formation of prejudices is supported by some characteristics of our cognitive apparatus. Apart from that, behavioural tendencies such as group orientation and xenophobia, as well as the biologically rooted rejection of outsiders, contribute to the formation of prejudices. Prejudices are hard to fight because of their biological basis, but insight into this element may indicate effective countermeasures.

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Its a highly debated Topic. at least i think.

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Originally Posted by Zimzum

Back when I lived in NH and went to high school there we had a class called Humanities, no english or social studies. They were combined to create the class. Well anyways, one of our class projects were too debate this exact topic. Half the class had to read "Lord of the flies" other half read "Fahrenheit 451". IMO humans are born neutral and are influenced by culture.

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both of those books are really good

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Originally Posted by Skrappie

the school of thought comes from the fact that we naturally dislike and disturst some things that preform the same function often for no reason. If its a slight difference your mind adjusts to put it in a catagory of better or worse. A few people would argue since everyone displays bias that it is a biological function, and dislike for 'other' people without any logical grounding is cultural, but stems from a biological function.

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hmmmm, its just seems overly reductive. It seems to be saying that individual psychological processes are reducible to biological processes.

If we were talking about prejudice between things like strawberry jam vs grape jam, I might agree with you. Maybe my particular body just happens to get more out of strawberry. But then it's not a prejudice anymore, it's actually biologically justified.
On a larger scale, discussing prejudices about things I don't use (?) such as people I don't think this would hold.
Plus, creation of in-groups and out-groups is a human universal. It might explain why we have tendencies to develop prejudices, but it never justifies any particular one. Rather it would just point out that we should always be skeptical of creating groups.

Have you heard at all of E.O. Wilson? or Sociobiology?