Robert Gerhardt said:
agreed, thread complete
whats Piaget?
Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist in the mid-20th century that sort of pioneered the idea that we develop these generalizations as a way of making sense of the world, and that these "schemes" (as he called them) shaped our neural pathways.
For instance, child meets a cat for the first time. Child notices a few things about the cat and creates a
schema for "cat"--it's hairy, has four legs, and has a tail. From that point forward, anything fitting that description is "cat." Then the child meets a dog for the first time. The existing schema dictates this is "cat," because it has hair, four legs, and a tail. Someone in authority tells the child, "No, sweetie, that's a dog." Now the child has to
adapt that schema to account for this new (seemingly contradictory) information. So, now "cat" is "hair, four legs, tail, short nose, pointy ears" and "dog" is "hair, four legs, tail, long nose, floppy ears."
Where these can become prejudices is when a person (or their individual schemes) become old enough that they no longer encounter or accept information that runs counter to the existing schemes. So, a child who has "learned" that "Mexicans are illegal immigrants" may grow into a person who believes that and doesn't
accept an explanation that provides exceptions to that "rule."
Of course, tons of people have built on Piaget's work, so it's just as likely that you've encountered developmental theories based on his in your own study. Never hurts to know your roots, though!