ATP mentor training/Teaching to overcome prejudices about others

Teaching to overcome prejudices about others

As a mentor you should teach your protégé to overcome prejudices about others. The categorical imperative can be a motivation for the protégé to do so: If you do not like others to hold prejudices about you you should not hold prejudices about others. The behavior of communicating prejudices as facts is a precedent that can be a role model for others, consequently the behavior pattern can spread with detrimental effect and could be seen as a part of the alien ecology.

Psychology of prejudices

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A learning objective for the protégé should be to see the behavior of others as abstract variants of his own behavior, which should be suitable to increase tolerance towards others.

Prejudices between mentor and protégé

A convenient entry to the topic is the search for possible prejudices between mentor and protégé. Actual prejudices are not an interesting topic because they may lead to discord and mentor and protégé are likely to drop any prejudices they may hold about each other during the mentoring relationship anyway. Especially at the beginning of a mentoring relationship it may not be wise to discuss actual prejudices too openly. At least it doesn't seem to be suitable as a general recommendation.

Discussing possible prejudices can be done by telling the protégé some of the possible prejudices one could hold about him and allowing the protégé to invent some prejudices one could hold about his mentor. To avoid mixing own prejudices with inventions you can invite the protégé to think about the possible perspectives of other persons or people from other countries and centuries and what prejudices they might hold or might have held and why. Speaking about possible prejudices is bound to reveal something about each other's way of thinking, interests and education but without implying that an actual prejudice exists.

Reducing prejudices between adolescents

To reduce prejudices between adolescents the protégé may require workable strategies. As a mentor you can give recommendations how you would try to reduce prejudices in your life (e.g. during an interview or after changing your residence). The protégé should try to invent his own strategies that make sense in his social environment. As a mentor your can think about the abstract strategy and try to suggest improvements.

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