Theories of Prejudice:
Introduction
Review: Key Concepts
• Kovel: racism (institutional)
vs. prejudice (individual)
• Malcolm X: overt vs. covert
blatant vs. Subtle
deliberate vs. unintentional
• Kovel: dominative vs. aversive
vs. meta-racism
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Prejudice based on projection of
repressed wishes, fears, & negative
self-images
• Applies to all prejudices – sexism,
homophobia, etc.?
• Applies to all instances?
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Helps explains content of stereotypes,
but not prevalence & intensity of prejudice?
• Explains some individuals but not others?
• Authoritarian personality
– (Aronson’s “prejudiced personality”)
Chapter 7: Prejudice
The Social Animal
Elliot Aronson
Historical Change
• Well-documented decline in overt
prejudice & internalization by victims
– Kenneth Clark doll experiments
– Phillip Goldberg “author gender” experiments
• Covert / subtle prejudice remains
pervasive
=
“Meta-racism”?
Definitions
• Historical change in definitions of
“stereotype”
– Negative
neutral
– Emotional
cognitive
• Prejudice vs. ethnocentrism
– William Graham Sumner: Folkways
How Stereotypes Work
1. “On” victims
– In situations when stereotypes made
salient
– When stereotypes internalized
2. “For” the prejudiced
Stereotype Threat
Claude Steele
• Stanford blacks taking GRE tests
– Testing IQ-s vs. testing the test
• Replications:
– Women taking math tests
– Latinos taking verbal (English) tests
– White engineering majors in study of “why
Asians excel”
– White guys can’t jump!
Attribution Theory
• Study of social forces influencing how
we make inferences about:
– Events
– Others’ behavior & personality traits
– Own behavior & personality traits
“Luck” vs. “Skill”
• Deaux & Emsweiler:
– Male success  skill
– Female success  luck
50 replications
• Stipek & Gralinski:
– Boys’ math success  skill
– Girls’ math success  luck
“Luck” vs. “Skill”
• Tennis players losing first sets:
– Men: luck or laziness
– Women: lower ability than opponent
• Turner & Pratkanis:
– Women hired for “affirmative action” gave
less effort, performed poorly
How Stereotypes Work for
Prejudiced
• Attribution Theory
– “Fundamental Attribution Error”
– “Ultimate Attribution Error”
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
– “Blaming the Victim”
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Attribution Theory
• Fundamental attribution error:
– Own behavior attributed to situations
– Others’ behavior attributed to dispositions
(personality traits, values, beliefs, etc.)
• T. Pettigrew: Ultimate attribution error
– Others’ successes attributed to situations
– Others’ failures attributed to traits
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Inflict harm
 dissonance (tension) with
positive self image
 denigrate victim
= “Blaming the Victim”
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Carl Word: job interview experiment
– Interviewer subtly elicits expected
stereotypic behavior
• Michelle Hebl field replication
– “homosexuals”: no overt discrimination
– but: shorter & less engaging interviews
Theories of Prejudice
• Economic & Political Competition
• Scapegoat Theory
• Low Status / Relative Deprivation
• Prejudiced Personality
• Prejudice through Conformity
Economic & Political Competition
= “Realistic Group Conflict”
• Real conflict  denigration & dehumanization of Other
• Sherif (Robber’s Cave) experiment
+ interdependence as solution
Scapegoat Theory
= Displaced Aggression
• Frustration  aggression research
– Kovel: class conflict within white
society diminished by displaced
aggression toward non-whites (Joe?)
Scapegoat Theory
• Hovland & Sears:
Price of cotton 1882 – 1930
predicts lynchings in American
South
Scapegoat Theory
Maintain Self-Image & Status
= Low Social Status
= Relative Deprivation
• Tajfel & Turner: “social identity theory”
– In-group identity & pride can raise selfregard and status over disadvantaged
ethnic out-groups
Prejudiced Personality
= Authoritarian Personality
= Right Wing Authoritarianism
• Personality structure organized by
subordination to conventional
authorities, conservative social values,
and hostility toward deviants and outgroups
Conformity
• Prevailing social norms strongly
influence individual prejudice above
and beyond other factors.
– People change views in accordance
with community into which they move.
– Pettigrew: conformity to norms
perhaps most important factor