Final answer:
Attitude entails emotions, beliefs, and behaviors while prejudice is a baseless preconceived opinion. Stereotypes are oversimplified ideas leading to prejudiced attitudes, unlike discrimination which involves negative actions towards a group. Understanding these concepts sociologically reveals their impact on social inequalities.
Step-by-step explanation:
Attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event. Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience, often characterized by negative feelings and discriminatory attitudes towards others. Attitudes are composed of three basic components: affective (emotions), behavioral (actions), and cognitive (beliefs), which can help us differentiate between a stereotype and discrimination.
Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people based on certain traits, which may lead to prejudiced attitudes but does not necessarily result in discriminatory actions. Meanwhile, discrimination involves the actual negative actions or behaviors towards individuals or groups because of their membership in a particular group. Racism specifically refers to the belief that races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
Prejudice and discrimination exist for a variety of reasons, including socialization, economic competition, and a way to justify one's position in a social hierarchy. They can manifest in various forms, such as individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, and structural discrimination. Understanding these concepts through a sociological lens allows us to see how they contribute to the maintenance of social inequalities and to view racial tension within a broader societal context.