Thursday, October 9, 2014

Privilege in the Real World

One of the things that we have been talking about lately in Social Psychology is "privilege" - the idea that we live in a society where some people have power and other people don't.  More importantly, we've been looking at how that privilege impacts our own experiences of self and our interactions in the real world.  Privilege works hand-in-hand with the fundamental attribution error.  We attribute other people's behavior not only to the immediate environment, but what we have learned about our roles and the roles that other people play in our society.

Here is a small selection of articles from this week alone that support the idea that privilege is alive and well in the United States.

Male Privilege: men tell women in tech that they should just work harder. 

White Privilege: black teenager maced in his own home, accused of breaking in

Male Privilege: avoid being assaulted to avoid being a victim

Socio-economic Privilege: "unapprehended felon" reflects on his success

Straight Privilege: Why are gays singled out amongst all the Catholic "sinners?"

Nationality Privilege: the ongoing push for "voter ID"

Male Privilege: battered women often sent to jail for failing to protect their children from rape, abuse

White Privilege: who gets treated for Ebola?

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