Explanations of prejudice
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Authoritarian personality
Stereotyping
Realistic conflict theory
Social identity theory
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Authoritarian personality
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Prejudice is caused by psychological
processes within the individual
Prejudiced people have a particular
personality type
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Authoritarian personality
Personality traits:
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Status oriented
Conventional and conformist
Suspicious & hostile
Caused by:
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Harsh and punitive upbringing resulting in
repressed hostility towards parents – this is
displaced onto ‘inferior’ people
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Authoritarian personality
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Adorno et al (1950)
Developed attitude scales to measure
authoritarianism (F-Scale), anti-Semitism &
ethnocentrism
Found significant +ve correlations:
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F-Scale w/anti-Semitism: +0.8
F-Scale w/ethnocentrism: +0.65
Shows strong relationship between
authoritarianism & prejudice
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Authoritarian personality
Problems with Adorno et al’s research:
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F-Scale consisted only of positive items –
response bias?
Theory developed using projective attitude
measures – researcher bias?
Correlation does not prove causation –
authoritarianism & prejudice may occur together,
but it doesn’t follow that one causes the other
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Authoritarian personality
Problems with the theory:
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Prejudice within a society can change very quickly
– e.g. Germany in 1930s, US following Pearl
Harbor – not consistent with Adorno’s idea that
prejudice always goes back to childhood.
Cannot easily account for prejudice affecting large
groups/whole societies e.g. South Africa under
apartheid
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Stereotyping
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Prejudice is caused by psychological
processes within the individual, but linked to
influences from society
Prejudice arises because people have a
tendency to think in ways that minimise
mental effort
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Stereotyping
Stereotypes = a sort of mental shorthand for
making sense of people:
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People classified as belonging to groups defined
by a single characteristic
All members of group assumed to have same
characteristics/behaviour
Content of stereotypes is learned from society
(family, peers etc.)
Prejudice is the result of negative
stereotyping
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Stereotyping
Once acquired, stereotypes tend to be selfconfirming because:
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We may avoid members of groups we stereotype
We tend to ignore or ‘explain away’ info that is
inconsistent with stereotypes
We may act in ways (rude, hostile) that cause
others to behave consistently with our stereotypes
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Stereotyping
Jane Eliot’s study of prejudice (blue eyesbrown eyes)
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Brown eyed children told they were better,
smarter, given privileges;
Brown eyes assumed superior attitude; blue eyes
started to perform poorly
Shows how quickly stereotypes start shaping
attitudes & behaviour
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Stereotyping
Greenberg & Pyzczynsky (1985)
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White students rated performance of Black
debaters more poorly than White if they had
heard a racist comment
Stereotypes increase prejudice but only when
activated
Minard (1952)
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Stereotypes can be suppressed but only when
social norms support this
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Stereotyping
Stereotypes often accompany & support
prejudice but may not cause it
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Social processes (e.g. group norms) influence the
expression of stereotyped thinking
Jane Eliot’s study is consistent with other theories
(esp. social identity)
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Realistic conflict theory
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Prejudice is caused by social processes
occurring between groups of people
Prejudice causes changes in individual
thinking (e.g. stereotyping) but these are
strongly linked to group processes
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Realistic conflict theory
Prejudice arises when two or more social
groups compete for the same scarce/valued
resource
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Inbuilt tendency to favour in-group members;
become hostile toward out-group members
Deny resources to out-group thereby ensuring
greater share for in-group/self
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Realistic conflict theory
Sherif et al (1961): the ‘Robber’s Cave’ study
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Competition & conflict artificially stimulated
between two groups of boys at a summer camp
Resulted in negative stereotyping of out-group;
hostile and aggressive acts toward out-group
members
Prejudice persisted even after competition ended
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Realistic conflict theory
Questions over the validity of the Robber’s
Cave study:
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Unrepresentative samples (US American boys;
limited numbers)?
Contrived & artificial situation?
Competition does not always create prejudice
(e.g. Tyerman & Spencer’s study with UK
scouts)
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Realistic conflict theory
RCT predicts that prejudice should intensify
during times of economic hardship. This
confirmed many times:
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Dollard (1938) prejudice against German
immigrants in US town increased as jobs grew
scarce
Jacobs & Landau (1971) US prejudice against
Chinese increased & decreased in line with
prosperity & competition
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Realistic conflict theory
Competition certainly increases prejudice.
However:
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Prejudice can exist in the absence of competition
(e.g. apartheid South Africa)
Competition does not automatically lead to
prejudice; it depends on the nature & relationship
of the groups involved (Tyerman & Spencer,
1983)
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Social identity theory
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Prejudice is caused by social processes
occurring between groups of people
It happens because of the way our sense of
self (identity) is determined by the groups we
belong to
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Social identity theory
We derive our identity in part from the social
groups we belong to (culture, religion,
profession, football team…)
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Consequently, we feel better about ourselves
when we feel good about our social groups
We get to feel good about our social groups by
comparing them favourably with other groups
psychlotron.org.uk
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Social identity theory
Prejudice is a strategy for achieving &
maintaining self-esteem:
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We will tend to be biased towards in-group
members and against out-group members
We will pay more attention to criteria that make
our in-groups look better than salient out-groups
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Social identity theory
Tajfel et al (1982) assigned schoolboys to
‘meaningless’ groups; allowed them to
allocate points/money to own & other group
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PPs always chose a strategy that would allocate
less to other group than to own even when this
meant getting less overall for their own group
Shows in-group bias in the absence of
competition & with only a ‘minimal group’
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Social identity theory
Favouritism towards in-group:
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Levine et al (2005) – Man-U & Liverpool fans
more likely to help an injured person if wearing
own team’s colours
Football fans – self-esteem linked to team
performance; tendency to denigrate other
teams/fans (esp. if local); tendency to emphasise
other ways of being superior if team doing poorly
(e.g. ‘Chelsea fans are glory hunters, not real
fans’ etc.)
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Social identity theory
Plenty of support for main propositions. Two
main problems:
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Tendency to favour in-group may be culturally
specific, not universal (Wetherall, 1982)
Most studies show bias towards in-group – not
necessarily the same thing as prejudice
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