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Responding to Bias and Prejudice Toward Psychopathology

In last week’s journal, you honestly reflected on your thoughts regarding abnormal psychology. Through that reflection, you may have recognized that you have some biases or prejudices toward specific groups of people. Recognizing any possible biases and prejudices is an essential step toward becoming a scholar of psychology. Taking reasonable steps toward resolving those biases and prejudices is a significant opportunity for personal growth and professional development.

This 250- to 500-word journal entry is an opportunity for you to describe ways that you might go about resolving any biases and prejudices within yourself. Alternatively, you may want to write about how you will respond to bias and prejudice you might encounter in your everyday life.

For instance, what kinds of education or experiences might help you address bias and prejudice within yourself? How might you respond to a person who thinks that people with mental health conditions should be locked away in institutions and never allowed to rejoin society? What kind of education might you provide to a person who believes that Autism is due to poor parenting? What resources might you draw from to support healthy, accurate, and research-supported views regarding psychopathology? What available resources might you point people to who need more information on specific issues? If you have any favorite websites or web resources, please add entries for those into the Webliography for this course. 

Consider any other questions that came up for you over the course of this week’s activities. You may share as much or as little as you wish, as long as it is evident in your journal that you have taken the time to reflect.

Please note that this journal does not require you to share personal information about your mental health or the mental health of people you know. Psychology instructors cannot ask students to divulge this kind of information for grading (see Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct Standards 7.04).

Your journal will be graded based on whether or not you provided a substantial and thoughtful entry.Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your journal entry.