The hidden prejudice shaping the world

Many people don't even realise that they are discriminating based on race or gender. And they won't believe that their unconscious actions have consequences until they see scientific evidence. Here it is.

The country in which I live has laws forbidding discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, sexuality or sex.

We've come a long way since the days when the reverse was true - when homosexuality was illegal, for instance, or when women were barred from voting.

But this doesn't mean that prejudice is over, of course. Nowadays we need to be as concerned about subtler strains of prejudice as the kind of loud-mouthed racism and sexism that makes us ashamed of the past.

Subtle prejudice is the domain of unjustified assumptions, dog-whistles, and plain failure to make the effort to include people who are different from ourselves, or who don't fit our expectations.

One word for the expressions of subtle prejudice is 'microaggressions'.

These are things such as repeating a thoughtless stereotype, or too readily dismissing someone's viewpoint - actions that may seem unworthy of comment, but can nevertheless marginalise an individual.

The people perpetrating these microaggressions may be completely unaware that they hold a prejudiced view.

Psychologists distinguish between our explicit attitudes - which are the beliefs and feelings we'll admit to - and our implicit attitudes - which are our beliefs and feelings which are revealed by our actions.

So, for example, you might say that you are not a sexist, you might even say that you are anti-sexist, but if you interrupt women more than men in meetings you would be displaying a sexist implicit attitude - one which is very different from that non-sexist explicit attitude you profess.

'Culture of victimhood'

The thing about subtle prejudice is that it is by definition subtle - lots of small differences in how people are treated, small asides, little jibes, ambiguous differences in how we treat one person compared to another.

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