Psychology
Individual Differences in Ideological Attitudes and Prejudice
Individual differences in ideological attitudes and prejudice refer to the variations in people's beliefs, values, and biases. These differences can be influenced by factors such as personality traits, socialization, and cognitive processes. Understanding these individual differences is important for addressing and reducing prejudice and discrimination in society.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
11 Key excerpts on "Individual Differences in Ideological Attitudes and Prejudice"
eBook - ePub- Miles Hewstone(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
Be they relevant to basic personality, ideology, cognition, emotion, or rationalisation, the individual differences we have identified correlate as much (if not more) with prejudice as do traditional “situational” variables (e.g., contact). The meta-analytic effect sizes listed in Table 2 are not insignificant by any standard, with many reaching the upper bounds of associations observed in psychology (see Hemphill, 2003). Individual differences matter, particularly (but not exclusively) for predicting generalised prejudices (see Akrami et al., 2011; Onraet et al., 2015; Sibley & Duckitt, 2008)—that is, understanding why some people (relative to others) systematically dislike a host of outgroups. Moreover, generalised implicit and generalised explicit prejudices can themselves be correlated, as represented in Figure 3. That is, implicit biases towards different groups can covary (suggesting an implicit generalised prejudice factor causing their covariation), just as explicit prejudices typically covary, with the explicit and implicit latent generalised prejudices then being inter-related. In such a test, Cunningham et al. (2004) observed a correlation of.47 between implicit and explicit generalised prejudice. Such findings demonstrate that people meaningfully and systematically differ from each other in both their self-reported and more indirect, automatic biases, and in their underlying common cause (i.e., individual differences in generalised intolerance). In the same way that “personality theories have difficulty explaining how the same person can show markedly different degrees of discrimination in different situations” (Rubin & Hewstone, 2004, p. 837), theories emphasising contextual factors to the neglect of person-based factors similarly have difficulty explaining how people can differ from each other in their dislike towards different and diverse outgroups, even over time (see Zick et al., 2008)
eBook - PDFError Without Trial
Psychological Research on Antisemitism
- Werner Bergmann(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
This contrasts with psychoanalysis, which emphasizes affective components of prejudice such as fear, insecurity, and aggression. 3) The behavioral dimension includes the behavioral tendencies of a person toward a particular object, such as acceptance, readiness to help, withdrawal, aggression, or emphasis on status differences. All such tenden-cies can be displayed either negatively or positively. Empirical research has concentrated primarily on social distance, prob-ably because Bogardus' social distance scale provided an early measuring instrument. 42 In addition to this consideration of definitions and the structure of theory, the explanation given by attitude psychologists for the rise of prejudice must be noted shortly before turning to studies of antisemitic prejudice. Like psychoanalytic-psychodynamic theories, attitude theories are individual-level explanations of prejudice 43 and must be distin-guished from sociological theories, whose point of departure is society as a whole. Within individual-level theories, one can differentiate between two types of theory: those theories which explain prejudice using person-ality characteristics (intrapersonal factors) and those which take interper-sonal relationships as their starting point. 44 Both the theories of cognitive integration, 45 which are oriented toward the inner psyche, and the learning-behavior theories, which take an interpersonal approach, 46 can be found in attitude theory. Theories of Cognitive Integration For the cognition-oriented psychology of social perception, prejudice is the result of processing social stimuli. 47 Although cognition theories are pp. 240-250, p. 240. J. H. Mann, The Effect of Interracial Contact on Sociometric Choices and Perceptions, Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 1959, pp. 143-152. 4 2 In agreement with McGuire, op. cit., we assume that this scale measures behavioral tendency rather than affective components.
eBook - ePub- Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- BPS Blackwell(Publisher)
Indeed, individual difference accounts may, reassuringly, help to explain why such atrocious acts remain extremely unusual – because there is something special about this individual. Nevertheless, this individual, however far from our social reality he was, clearly saw the world through a prism of ‘us and them’, involving very strong ‘ingroup’ loyalties and ‘outgroup’ enmities. Social categorization processes, social stereotypes and the identities and animosities of the intergroup level may all have played a crucial part here, and at the very least formed the setting in which his personal pathology played itself out (and indeed egalitarian societal norms against prejudice might ironically even have contributed to the force of the individual-level explanation in this case, by exacerbating a personal sense of resentment). When it comes to explaining prejudice in the modern world, it is not a case of ‘one size fits all’. In many cases we may need to draw on many levels of explanation to make full sense of prejudice, and also to explain how it can vary so widely between and within groups. We consider, first, the individual-level explanations that start us on this road. PERSONALITY APPROACHES TO PREJUDICE Is there a prejudiced personality? People differ in terms of their attitudes towards social groups. More interestingly, it seems that attitudes towards a range of social groups are often correlated: people who have negative attitudes towards one outgroup also tend to have negative attitudes towards other outgroups (Allport, 1954b). This is most evident in the case of the outright bigot, who dislikes, for example, Black people, Jews and homosexuals, three quite different groups. The generality of prejudice suggests that prejudiced beliefs may somehow be rooted within an individual’s personality
- Martha Augoustinos, Katherine Jane Reynolds, Martha Augoustinos, Katherine Jane Reynolds(Authors)
- 2001(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
10 Prejudice as a Group Process: The Role of Social Identity Katherine J. Reynolds and John C. Turner It makes sense to understand prejudice as a group process. Firstly, prejudiced attitudes and actions are shared amongst large social groupings. Secondly, prejudice is directed towards others because of their membership of a particular group (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, political affiliation). Thirdly, to the extent that members of a particular group are prejudiced towards members of another group, the relationship between these groups could be an important determining factor. In fact, it could be argued that prejudice is of interest to social scientists, politicians, lawmakers, and members of the community precisely because such attitudes and behaviour are shared by groups of people and stem from people’s group memberships. Prejudice would not be a significant problem worthy of public interest and extensive research if it were confined to a few isolated individuals. These points may seem fairly non-controversial but when it comes to articulating the psychological processes that underlie prejudice the controversy within social psychology becomes apparent (F. Allport, 1962; Asch, 1952; Turner, 1987; Turner and Oakes, 1986). Group factors related to prejudice are often neglected and researchers turn to alternative explanations, such as (a) personality or individual difference factors which are believed to predispose certain individuals to display prejudice (i.e., authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, dogmatism; see Heaven, Chapter 6 for more details), and (b) purely psychological causes that can automatically and inevitably lead to the expression of prejudice via individual cognitive or motivational processes (i.e., information processing capabilities related to attentional resources and mood; see Locke and Johnston, Chapter 7 and Baird and Duck, Chapter 8, respectively; see also Tajfel, 1969; Turner, 1999b, Turner and Giles, 1981).
eBook - PDF- Mary G. McCrea Curnen, Howard Spiro, Deborah St James(Authors)
- 1997(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
Research shows that the prejudiced person is given to two-valued judgments in gen-eral (pp. 174-75). Prejudiced people, according to this account, tend to dichotomize when they think of nature, human institutions, and moral or psychological phenomena. They tend to be intolerant of ambiguity, show-ing a marked need for simple, definite categories. They persist in old ways of reasoning, whether or not this reasoning has anything to do with human behavior. They weave a single and unitary style of life from the cognitive and emotional strands of their personalities, and this style sets them apart from tolerant people. The prejudiced repress their impulses rather than consciously facing and mastering their conflicts. They fail to integrate the myriad of impulses that arise within the personality and the myriad of environmental pressures without. There are sharp cleavages between their conscious and unconscious layers. In short, they have weak egos in need of psychological crutches. The [prejudiced] individual cannot face the world unflinchingly and in a forthright manner. He seems fearful of him-self, of his own instincts, of his own consciousness, of change, and of his social environment. Since he can live in comfort neither with himself nor with others, he is forced to organize his whole style of living, including his social attitudes, to fit his crippled condition. It is not his specific social attitudes that are malformed to begin with; it is rather his own ego that is crippled (p. 396). Here Allport echoes the basic idea of The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950), which analyzed ethnic prejudice as the expression of deep-lying trends in personality. 3 Allport's contact theory is now some-times said to have encouraged a cognitive approach in studies of prejudice (Katz, 1991), but its roots are in psychodynamic theories of personality.
eBook - PDFBeyond Prejudice
Extending the Social Psychology of Conflict, Inequality and Social Change
- John Dixon, Mark Levine(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Through a systematic exploration of the self-process, social identity and the role of the group in stereotyping, prejudice and social change, it is argued that the nature of intergroup relations and collective explanations of these relations both shape prejudiced attitudes and make change possible. On this basis, we reject any suggestion that prejudice is rendered inevitable by the workings of human psychology – whether understood in terms of personality or general cognitive processes. Even at the very darkest moments of human history there has always been, and there will always be, the prospect of positive social and political change. It is this that offers hope for further scientific advance in understanding prejudice and its elimination. On this firm theoretical and empirical basis there is hope that through coordinated scientific efforts all the secrets to ‘smashing’ prejudice will be revealed. Prejudice, social identity and social change 65 References Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J. and Sanford, R. N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper. Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Altemeyer, B. (1996). The Authoritarian Specter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Asch, S. E. (1952). Social Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bell, J. (2006). Australia: state of fear. The Age. Retrieved 6 May 2010 from: www. theage.com.au/news/opinion/australia-state-of-fear/2006/01/26/1138066918372. html. Billig, M. (1976). Social Psychology and Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press. Brown, R. J. (1995). Prejudice: its Social Psychology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Dollard, J., Doob, L. W., Miller, N. E., Mowrer, O. H. and Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and Aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dovidio, J., Gaertner, S. L. and Kawakami, K. (2003). Intergroup contact: the past, present, and the future. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 6, 5–21. Duckitt, J.
eBook - PDF- T. Gallagher(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
3 Psychological Perspectives on Prejudice Introduction An enduring feature of ethnic conflict lies in the speed with which unimaginable fury can sometimes be raised. It is as if there is a deep well of emotional forces just waiting to be unleashed under propi- tious circumstances. Whether this is an overly simplistic picture or not, it is perhaps why some people look to psychology for part of the explanation for ethnic conflict. This chapter will examine some of the general themes that emerge from psychological work on pre- judice by focusing on a number of key moments in research and theorising. The first part of the chapter will examine the way in which psychologists examined people’s methods for perceiving and making sense of the world, including their consideration of some of the cognitive processes involved in perception, such as categorisa- tion and stereotyping. The next main section of the chapter will examine two of the main theories of prejudice that have developed within social psychology, based on research in the US in the 1950s, and in Europe in the 1980s. In the final part of the chapter we will examine some of the themes to emerge from a later body of work where some psychologists have focused on the role of language in the social construction of reality. To close the chapter we will briefly point to some of the implications that arise from the discussion as a whole. The reason for examining these themes from social psycho- logy is the potential insight they provide to the inter-relationships between people, particularly those which seem to foment prejudice and discrimination. All too often these are characteristics of divided societies. 22 Perception An important theme in psychological work on the way people perceive the world is to recognise that we do not simply receive stimuli in a passive and uninvolved way. Rather, people actively try to understand and make sense of the world.
eBook - PDF- James L. Bowditch, Anthony F. Buono, Marcus M. Stewart(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
This is an important basis of attribution theory—a person’s beliefs about his or her future activities and interpretations of past activities influence that person’s actions in the present. 27 PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES As discussed earlier, there are a number of internal and external factors as well as perceptual tendencies that influence what each of us sees and hears of the world around us. Thus, different individuals organize their perceptions of reality in a distinctive if not unique manner. Within the context of a diverse workplace, these differences can readily moderate the ways in which people respond to a variety of organizational and managerial practices. Different individuals, for example, will vary in terms of how much importance they attach to intrinsic job-related rewards, the style of leadership they prefer, their need for interpersonal contact and interaction, and their tolerance and acceptance of job responsibility. 28 Within organizational behavior (OB), the concept of individual differences implies that personal characteristics influence the way in which people perform on the job and in the workplace. This section briefly examines how an individual’s personality and self- concept can influence perception and work-related behaviors, and the implications for management decision making. 52 Chapter 2 Perception, Attitudes, and Individual Differences Personality While many factors influence perception, one of the most influential determinants is an individual’s personality. Psychologists use the concept in a neutral, universal sense in terms of what characterizes an individual. Although there are a variety of definitions of personality, an underlying theme is consistency, the similarity of responses a person makes in different situations. In fact, research evidence is accumulating that suggests virtually all personality measures can be condensed into five key traits, referred to as the “Big Five”: 29 1.
eBook - PDFOn the Nature of Prejudice
Fifty Years after Allport
- John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
The most important priority for future research and theory may therefore be the development and testing of such integrative models to provide a broader and more comprehensive under-standing of the causes and dynamics of prejudice. REFERENCES Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other “auth-oritarian personality.” In M. P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 30, pp. 47–92). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Duckitt, J. (1992). The social psychology of prejudice . New York: Praeger. Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual process cognitive-motivational theory of ide-ology and prejudice. In M. Zanna Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D., & Sanford, N. (1950). The authoritarian personality . New York: Harper. Allport, G. (1954/1979). The nature of prejudice . Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-wing author-itarianism . Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Personality and Prejudice 411 (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 33, pp. 41–113). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Duckitt, J. (2003). Authoritarianism, social dominance, and prejudice against social groups varying in threat and social subordination. MS sub-mitted for publication. Duckitt, J. & Fisher, K. (2003). The impact of social threat on worldview and ideological attitudes. Political Psy-chology , 24 , 199–222. Duckitt, J., Wagner, C., du Plessis, I.,& Birum, I. (2002). The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: Test-ing a dual process model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 83 , 75–93. Duriez, B. & Van Hiel, A. (2002). The march of modern fascism. A compar-ison of social dominance orientation and authoritarianism. Personality and Individual Differences , 32 , 1199–1213. Esses, V., Dovidio, J., Jackson, L., & Armstrong, T. (2001). The immigra-tion dilemma: the role of perceived group competition, ethnic prejudice, and national identity. Journal of Social Issues , 5 , 389–413. Esses, V., Haddock, G., & Zanna, M.
- John F Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick, Victoria M Esses, John F Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick, Victoria M Esses, SAGE Publications Ltd(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Journal of Social Issues , 17, 129–142. Saucier, G. (2000). Isms and the Structure of Social Attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 78, 366–385. Schaller, M., Boyd, C., Yohannes, J., & O’Brien, M. (1995). The prejudiced personality revisited: Personal need for structure and formation of erroneous group stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 68, 544–555. Schmitt, M. T., Branscombe, N. R., & Kappen, D. M. (2003). Attitudes toward group-based inequality: Social dominance or social identity? British Journal of Social Psychology , 42, 161–186. Schuman, H., Steeh, C., & Bobo, L. (1985). Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpreta-tions . Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press. Sears, D. O., & Henry, P. J. (2003). The origins of symbolic racism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 85, 259–275. Sears, D. O., & Henry, P. J. (2005). Over thirty years later: A contemporary look at symbolic racism. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social 178 BASIC PROCESSES AND CAUSES OF PREJUDICE, STEREOTYPING AND DISCRIMINATION Psychology (Vol. 37, pp. 95–150). San Diego: Elsevier Academic Press. Sibley, C. G., & Duckitt, J. (2008). Personality and prejudice: A meta-analysis and theoretical review. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 12, 248–279. Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1993). Racism and support of free–market capitalism: A cross-cultural analysis. Political Psychology , 14, 381–401. Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression . New York: Cambridge University Press. Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., & Bobo, L. (1996). Racism, conservatism, affirmative action, and intellectual sophistication: A matter of principled conservatism or group dominance? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 70, 476–490. Sniderman, P. M., & Carmines, E. G. (1997). Reaching Beyond Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sniderman, P.
eBook - ePub- Piercarlo Valdesolo, Jesse Graham, Piercarlo Valdesolo, Jesse Graham(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
2015 , for a review). Less innocent processes, however, also may play a role and are discussed next.Political Prejudice in General
Prejudice and intolerance have long been considered the province of the political right (e.g., Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950 ; Duckitt, 2001 ; Lindner & Nosek, 2009 ). Social psychologists have suspected both the existence of a personality type associated with generalized prejudice toward a variety of social groups (Akrami, Ekehammar, & Bergh, 2011 ), and that this personality type is associated with political conservatism (Roets & van Hiel, 2011 ). Aspects of right-wing political ideologies (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) correlate with many prejudices (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008 ). This body of evidence has led to the conclusion that there is a “prejudice gap” (c.f., Chambers, Schlenker, & Collisson, 2013 ), such that conservatives are more prejudiced than liberals.More recently, however, theory and new evidence have called this “prejudice gap” into question on several grounds. First, liberals and conservatives both tend to exaggerate their differences, but this tendency is at least sometimes more pronounced among liberals (Graham, Nosek, & Haidt, 2013 ) and among those who care more deeply about the underlying political issues, including liberals (e.g., Chambers, Baron, & Inman, 2006 ). For example, and probably most relevant to social psychology, Democrats dramatically underestimated (effect size, d = 1.14) Republican support for public education and programs designed to reduce inequality. Perceiving more disagreement than actually exists is important because as perceived disagreement increases, unfavorable trait ratings of and anger toward the outgroup increase (Chambers & Melnyk, 2006
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
