The lived experience of overcoming prejudice

Prejudice and overcoming prejudice have been defined and explained in their manifest forms, rather than illustrated as lived experiences within individual life-worlds. The participants in the present study indicated that contact and some of the associated characteristics (e.g., equal status and common goals) were not sufficient in overcoming prejudice. The participants had previously incorporated their prejudices into their ways of being; for example, stereotypes and expectations became difficult to discard. When the participants were startled by individuals whom they had previously regarded as the negative others behaving in ways that contradicted what the participants had come to know, their attitudes were challenged.