How Psychologists Attempt to Explain the Origins of Prejudice

How Psychologists Attempt to Explain the Origins of Prejudice

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to assume that one's culture or way of life is superior to all others.

Prejudice is a negative attitude toward an entire category of individuals.

Discrimination is behaviour that excludes all members of a group from certain rights, opportunities or privileges.

A range of international events have recently focused attention on the issue of prejudice; increasing ethno-nationalistic tensions in former Eastern block countries, racial conflict in the Middle East, Africa and intergroup conflict related to " race debates " in Europe, The U.S.A and Australia. Psychology is the only discipline, which over the past century has consistently and systematically investigated the issue of prejudice and race.

Social psychology has a long tradition of empirical and theoretical research in this field and currently there are many social psychologists in Australia engaged in significant and timely research. This is no accident given the regions long and chequered history regarding race relations with the treatment of the Australian Aborigines has been likened to genocide.

Currently there are a number of theoretical and conceptual psychological approaches, which both define and explain prejudice. Personality theories primarily locate race and prejudice within the intro-psychic domain of the individual. From this perspective, authoritarian-rearing practices, intolerance and intro psychic defence mechanisms are isolated as casual agents to a significant problem. There are several theories as to why people are prejudiced. The exploitation theory keeps a racial group in a subordinate social position. The scapegoating theory says that prejudice peo...

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The emphasis of theory and research into trying to understand and reduce prejudice must pay less attention to the given issue of prejudice. However, our knowledge of areas such as individual personality, cognitive processes is fundamental to developing effective interventions aimed at moderating prejudice. John Duckitt of the University of Auckland has integrated this knowledge into a multi-level approach to the reduction of prejudice. It is based on three casual processes; individual -- differences in susceptibility, exposure to certain social influences and social structure and intergroup relations. For each level various interventions which have been used or proposed in order to reduce prejudice will be described and evaluated e.g. antidiscrimmination laws, anti-racism media campaigns, education, racism awareness training and counselling.