The term "prejudice" refers to ________.
Fill in the blank with the correct answer from the options given below.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Pre-judgement
Option (1) Community identity — Incorrect. Community identity is a sense of who we are, based on birth and ‘belonging’ to a family, caste, religion or region. It is about our own group, not about an opinion formed about another group.
Option (2) Social inequality — Incorrect. Social inequality is the pattern in which some people have a greater share of valued resources such as money, property, education, health and power than others. Prejudice may help keep inequality going, but the two words do not mean the same thing.
Option (3) Pre-judgement — Correct. Prejudices are pre-conceived opinions or attitudes held by members of one group towards another. The word literally means ‘pre-judgement’: an opinion formed in advance, before getting to know the people concerned or looking at any evidence. Such an opinion can be negative or, less often, favourable.
Option (4) Individual’s life chances — Incorrect. Life chances are the opportunities a person has in life, such as education, health and a good job, which depend largely on the family and social group one is born into. They are an outcome of one’s position in society, not an opinion held about others.
NCERT (2025-26): “Social Inequality … Prejudices refer to pre-conceived opinions or attitudes held by members of one group towards another. The word literally means ‘pre-judgement’, that is, an opinion formed in advance of any familiarity with the subject, before considering any available evidence. A prejudiced person’s preconceived views are often based on hearsay rather than on direct evidence, and are resistant to change even in the face of new information. Prejudice may be either positive or negative. Although the word is generally used for negative pre-judgements, it can also apply to favourable pre-judgement.…” |