We unconsciously form prejudice toward groups when we see biased people interact with members of a group. That is according to new research by psychologists of the University of Amsterdam , who show for the first time that observational learning is an important mechanism of prejudice formation. Their results were published today inDavid Amodio : 'What we found in our research is that prejudice can form by merely observing other people's social interactions.
This mechanism helps to explain how societal prejudices spread so easily, for example, through the viewing of TV programmes, YouTube or other social media where biased interactions with a certain groups takes place. By merely observing those interactions, vicariously and with no direct contact, people may take on the same prejudices.During the experiments, a research participant viewed interactions between an actor and members of two different groups.
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