Community, Participation, and the Common Good

Vocabulary flashcards defining key sociological, legal, and theological terms related to community, prejudice, discrimination, cognitive bias, and racial structures.

The Common Good

A world of compassion, cooperation, and communion where the general welfare is promoted, inclusion is practiced, and all are treated as equals; also described as God’s Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven."

Stereotype

An oversimplified generalization about a person, group, or thing that can cause people to become judgmental.

Prejudice

A pre-formed judgment about an individual or group, usually based on insufficient data; originates from the Latin word Praejudicum, meaning "to prejudge."

Antilocution

The first stage of intensity of prejudice, characterized by speaking against others, often through clichés, ethnic jokes, and micro-aggressions.

Avoidance

The second stage of intensity of prejudice, defined as intentionally ignoring and going out of the way to avoid members of a disliked group (e.g., not sitting next to someone on a bus or requesting a different server).

Discrimination

The third stage of intensity of prejudice, involving harmful actions against a disliked person or group, such as segregation, denial of employment, restriction of educational opportunities, or exclusion from neighborhoods and organizations.

Physical Attacks

The fourth stage of intensity of prejudice, consisting of hate crimes and acts of violence committed against individuals.

Extermination

The fifth stage of intensity of prejudice, defined as eliminating the undesirable group through acts of genocide.

Feminization of Poverty

The higher rate of poverty observed among households that are headed by women.

Ageism

Prejudice or discrimination based on age, resulting in consequences such as forced retirement, higher poverty rates, and refusal to hire individuals for jobs for which they are qualified.

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

A federal law signed by President Barack Obama in October 2009 that criminalizes willfully causing bodily injury with a dangerous weapon based on race, color, religion, or national origin, and extends federal prosecution to hate crimes motivated by actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Genocide (UN Convention Article II)

Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, including killing group members, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting destructive life conditions, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children.

Bias

A particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion; a preference that inhibits impartial judgment (a slant); or to unfairly influence.

Confirmation Bias

A form of bias where people welcome information that confirms what they already think and actively resist information that disturbs them.

Complexity Bias

The human brain's inclination to prefer a simple lie over a complex truth.

Community Bias

The difficulty of seeing or accepting what one’s community or tribe does not want them to see; also recognized as social confirmation bias.

Complimentary Bias

A bias whereby individuals are open to new information if people treat them kindly, but become closed off if people are unkind, demonstrating that delivery matters.

Contact Bias

The barrier where a lack of personal contact with others prevents seeing their perspective, whereas developing a connection with someone of a different perspective increases openness.

Consciousness Bias

The principle that an individual's personal level of maturity plays a crucial role in their capacity to perceive and accept new things.

Confidence Bias

The cognitive error of mistaking confidence for competence, causing individuals to accept a confident lie rather than a hesitant truth.

Comfort Bias

The tendency to welcome data that allows one to feel relaxed and happy, while rejecting information that creates anxiety or worry.

Implicit Bias

Attitudes or stereotypes that alter and affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Racism

The systemic subordination of targeted racial groups possessing relatively little social power or privilege by members of the dominant racial group, perpetuated by individual actions, cultural norms, and institutional structures.

Race

A social, cultural, and historical construct that artificially divides human populations into categorized groups.

Ancestry

An individual's genealogical relationship and lineage to other individuals throughout family history.

Ethnicity

Social groupings based on shared cultural characteristics such as a common history, core values, behavioral customs, and language.

Nationality

The legal and civic status of belonging to a specific nation by virtue of birth or naturalization, which may or may not involve shared origins or traditions.

Culture

The customary beliefs, social forms, and material practices that define a specific racial, ethnic, religious, or social group.

Jim Crow Laws

A racial caste system enforced in the United States between 1877 and the 1960s based on the ideology that white people were God’s Chosen People while Black people were intellectually, morally, and culturally inferior.

Institutional Racism

An overarching concept referring to the systemic ways in which organizations, institutions, and administrative policies operate to perpetuate racial inequities.

Systemic Racism

A framework focusing on the deep interconnectedness of institutional systems (such as legal, educational, and economic systems) that collectively disadvantage specific racial groups.

Structural Racism

A dimension of racism highlighting the broad historical foundations, legal frameworks, and cultural assumptions that allow inequitable systems to exist and endure.