Chapter 2:
Prejudice & Discrimination
SOC 327
Race & Ethnic Relations
Merton’s Typology
Unprejudiced
Prejudiced
Non-Discr.
Discriminates
all-weather liberal
fair-weather liberal
timid bigot
all-weather bigot
Stereotypes




Group overgeneralizations & overarching
assumptions we make of “others”
Resistant to empirical disproof: actually
reinforced by selective perception, regardless of
frequency of hard evidence to the contrary
Overly simplistic - static mental pictures we carry
Exaggerations which may be flattering (damning
with praise) or crude or negative
Examples of each?
Types of Stereotypes




Subordinate status, groups’ shortcomings =>
inferiority stereotypes (highly genderized &
racialized, sometimes nationalized)
Resistance to subordination, violent prone =>
negative stereotypes: “Too X,Y, and Z”
Both types rationalize and legitimate
dominant group position, their policies and
practices of privilege, exclusion, vertical
control, rampant discrimination, etc.
Targets of stereotypes may in time exhibit
self-fulfilling prophecy syndrome
Attribution Theory
CAUSES OF
High Status:
Low Status:
GOOD BEHAVIOR
natural/internal
external/exceptional
Examples?
BAD BEHAVIOR
.
external/exceptional
natural/internal
Three Types of Prejudice
1.
2.
3.
Psych: Prejudice caused by personality needs &
flaws
Cultural: Prejudice learned during “normal”
socialization in a (racist) culture, e.g., in TV,
political discourse, community & family life, etc.
Power/Conflict: Prejudices arise during intergroup
competition over access to scarce resources,
higher status, and power (typically in the absence
of an overriding unifying ideology & cooperative
practices that help reduce all competitive
pressures or transfer them elsewhere).
Examples?
Psychological Theories of
Prejudice



Projection: seeing in others characteristics or
feelings we can’t admit we have in ourselves:
constructing an “evil other” mirror of ourselves
Displacement: attributing the causes of one’s
problems and frustrations to weaker, easilytargetable groups: scapegoating
Authoritarian personality: those whom fascism,
racism, sexism actually easily attracts…
Cultural Theories of Prejudice

Myrdal’s vicious circle of prejudice/discrimination:

=>inferior status => prejudice/racism =>
discrimination => inferior status=>
Socialization of children: prejudices“caught, not
taught”
Bogardus’s social distance scale

seven degrees of proximity or intimacy
 Changing distance & ordering reflect the varying
degrees of current exploitation & world events

Power/Conflict Theories of
Prejudice
Prejudice/discrimination are caused by
intergroup competition and serves as a
rationale for exploitation & social
stratification, and as a tool for class rule
=> Embedded in every historical social
system's hierarchical structures & ideology
Power/Conflict Theories of
Prejudice
Marxist explanation of racial, ethnic & national
antagonisms: they are the outcome of the
deliberate design of capitalist class to sustain its
class rule over subordinate groups & classes
 Instrumentalist: the political/economic manipulation
of exploited classes: “divide & conquer”
 hegemony of dominant culture => rampant “false
consciousness” within the working and middle
classes
==> Solution: “Workers of the World, Unite!”
Power/Conflict Theories of
Prejudice
Split Labor Market Theory of ethnic
antagonism: three-way class struggle in rich
capitalist societies between:
 Capitalists, always seeking low labor costs
 high-wage, organized native labor force
 low-wage, sojourner, unorganized immigrant
labor force
 The three-way dynamic explains recurrent
waves of protectionism & ethnic antagonism.
World-Systems Perspective

Since the rise of capitalism in XVI Century
northwest Europe, a world-system has grown to
encompass the Earth, expanding in a 3-tier
hierarchy of geographic regions, states, and
types of labor regimes:




Core: free wage labor (herrenvolk democracy)
Semiperiphery: semi-coerced labor (serfdom,
sharecropping, authoritarian regimes)
Periphery: colonial slavery
Racism & sexism arose in this structure, always
in tension with universalist modern values.