All attitudes are evaluative. That is, they involve making judgments. We can have an attitude on social issues such as capital punishment or gun control; on politics (democrats, republicans, liberals); on institutions (churches, the supreme court); consumer products (cars, computers, ice-cream); people (the Prime Minister or president, the next door neighbour, our friends, our enemies).

Life is an attitude.

So if some says to you "get a life!", they are probably also saying "get an attitude!" We are constantly make judgments - favourable or unfavourable on just about anything and everything. Life is one big evaluation process. But attitudes are far from simple.

They are a complex mixture of the way we think, feel and act.They are inescapable.

Prejudice is a negative attitude we have towards particular groups of people. We may find it difficult to admit but all of us carry levels of prejudice even though it may not be always obvious to others or even to ourselves.

Prejudice as an attitude affects our thinking, our emotions and our actions.

We can have a belief that whites are arrogant and blacks are lazy. We can feel so strongly about our views that we begin to despise others and become angry, which can soon turn into hate or deep intolerance.

Our behaviour and actions will then reflect our feelings. In fact most hostilities come down to underlying prejudices, whether they be political, ideological, racial or ethnic.

But prejudice is not limited to these areas alone. Women, homosexuals, the aged, the handicapped, and the mentally ill are all targets of widespread prejudice. When you become the victim of prejudice you soon feel the alienating, denigrating and inhumane forces it unleashes.

When our feelings of superiority take over we can all become dismissive of others.

The one single factor which plays a large role in prejudice is "stereotypes". Prejudice occurs as the result of derogatory stereotyping. We can have negative attitudes to certain groups of people even without any personal knowledge of them. Our families, our cultures, our social groups all form opinions about others.

It can be very difficult to go against the 'groupthink' even when deep down we may not agree with the attitudes being expressed. But stereotyping allows us to depersonalise other groups and so dehumanise our actions.

We may not understand the power of prejudicial attitudes until we become the target of them. Prejudice, because of its "ready-made attitudes", short-cuts the processes for acquiring accurate and well informed insights about others as individuals.

There is no easy path away from prejudice.But let's hope those who refuse not to walk away from it don't walk through your front door.