Discrimination based on personal appearance is a big problem in modern society, though many people do not consider it a real form of prejudice. Despite their rise in popularity with the number of people with 2 or more tattoos doubling since 2007, tattoos in the workplace remain a contentious topic (STAPAW, 2012). Body art is art that is made with or put onto the body, tattoos are the main area of discrimination due to body art, body modifications are the artistic or aesthetic alterations of the body such as body and facial piercing, stretching the piercing holes, extreme hair cutting or styling, branding or scarring the skin and the less popular alterations of teeth sharpening and facial implants. Reactions to such …show more content…
He presented two lists of adjectives, one with positive characteristics at the start and another with positive characteristics at the end of the list. Asch found that the people who were given the first list had a much more positive view of the person then the people given the second list. This demonstrates the Primacy Effect (ChangingMinds, 2002).
Primacy and recency effect can play a part in the discrimination and stereotyping of individuals with body art or modifications. When a person reads or sees that an individual has tattoos, piercings or modifications, they immediately interpret this person negatively, forming an attitude and branding them intimidating, mentally ill or just someone they will not like. For people that do stereotype these individuals, it is extremely difficult for them to change their attitude towards them or take into consideration other qualities and characteristics they may have (Lee, 2014).
Defining Stereotyping
According to Hogg and Vaughan (2002), stereotypes are that are strongly influenced impressions of people (AlleyDog, …show more content…
This is commonly known as the ABC model of attitudes (McLeod, 2014).
The functional approach attempts to understand the purpose of the attitude, there are five different attitudes in this function, adaptive function; guides us to reach goals and avoid the undesirable, self- expression; our personal opinion, attitudes and views. ego; has a defensive function, knowledge function; structure and organisation, social adjustment function; manages social situations (Katz, 2015).
Prejudice and Discrimination
Prejudice is an unjustified, incorrect or negative attitude towards an individual based solely on the individual’s membership of a social group. A prejudiced person may not act on their attitude, therefore, someone can be prejudiced towards a certain person but not discriminate against them. Discrimination is the physical behaviour or actions, towards an individual or group of people, on the basis of sex, race, social class or appearance. Prejudice includes all three components of the ABC model of attitudes, whereas discrimination is usually just behaviour (McLeod,