Individual Differences and Prejudice: Is There a Prejudiced Personality

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• Individual Differences and Prejudice Is There a
  Prejudiced Personality?

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The Big 3 Authoritarianism, Social Dominance
Orientation, and Empathy

• The Big 3 are the individual difference
  variables most closely associated with prejudice.
• Authoritarianism and social dominance resemble
  ideologies.
• Empathy reflects a personality variable.

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Authoritarianism

• Authoritarian personality
• A personality type that is especially susceptible
  to unthinking obedience to authority.
• Characteristic patterns include
• Conventionalism
• Authoritarian submission
• Authoritarian aggression
• Stereotypy
• Projectivity

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Authoritarianism

• Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) - set of
  attitudes in three clusters
• Authoritarian submission
• Authoritarian aggression
• Conventionalism
• Prejudiced against a wide variety of groups,
  especially those that authority figures condemn
  and that are perceived to violate traditional
  values.

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Authoritarianism

• Personal characteristics of people high in RWA
  that may predispose them to prejudice
• Mentally inflexible
• Disinterest in experiencing new things
• Perception of the world as a dangerous place
• Tendency to organize their worldviews in terms of
  ingroups and outgroups

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Social Dominance Orientation

• Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) - desires that
  ones ingroup dominate and be superior to
  outgroups.
• Two components
• Group-based dominance
• Opposition to equality

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Social Dominance Orientation

• People high in SDO prefer a society in which
  social groups are unequal and their group holds
  the superior position.
• People who hold more power in society exhibit
  higher levels of social dominance orientation.
• Social power causes people to develop social
  dominance attitudes.

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Social Dominance Orientation and Prejudice

• People high in SDO are prejudiced against members
  of groups that challenge the legitimacy of social
  inequality.
• Personal characteristics that may predispose
  people high in SDO to prejudice
• Seeing the world in competitive terms
• Belief that other groups successes necessarily
  come at their ingroups expense
• Low empathy
• Tough-minded

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Social Dominance Orientation and Prejudice

• Legitimizing myths are important here.
• Group stereotypes are legitimizing myths that can
  be used to justify denying equality to other
  groups.
• SDO versus RWA

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Empathy and Prejudice

• An other-oriented response congruent with
  anothers perceived welfare.
• Four components of empathy
• Perspective taking
• Empathic concern
• Personal distress
• Fantasy
• More empathic people exhibit less prejudice.

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Self-Esteem and Prejudice

• Self-enhancement
• People who are low in self-esteem may use
  prejudice to boost their self-images by looking
  down on others.
• High self-esteem seems to be linked to prejudice.
• Self-protection
• People may respond to threats to self-esteem with
  prejudice to reduce the effects of the threat and
  feel better about oneself.
• Research supports this idea.

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Intergroup Anxiety and Prejudice

• Intergroup Anxiety feelings of discomfort
  experienced when interacting with members of
  other groups.
• Negative expectations for the interaction exist
  for one of two reasons
• Little contact with the outgroup
• Negative experiences with members of the outgroup
  in the past
• Research has shown strong support for the
  relationship between intergroup anxiety and
  prejudice.

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Individualism and Prejudice

• Individualism emphasizes self-reliance and
  independence from others
• Protestant work ethic emphasizes importance of
  hard work and perseverance as the way to success
  in life.
• Groups that are stereotyped as violating the
  principles of individualism are viewed negatively
  by those who adhere to these principles.

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Egalitarianism and Prejudice

• Egalitarianism emphasizes equal opportunity,
  equal treatment for all people, and concern for
  others well-being
• Egalitarianism may inhibit prejudice, working to
  counteract all forms of prejudice.
• Research has found that greater endorsement of
  egalitarian values was associated with less
  prejudice.

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Religion and Prejudice

• Some forms of religiosity are positively
  correlated with prejudice and other forms of
  religiosity are negatively correlated with
  prejudice.
• Religious Involvement
• Research has found that religious involvement is
  consistently correlated with a variety of forms
  of prejudice.

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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious Orientation

• Intrinsic religious orientation truly believe in
  religious teachings and try to live life
  according to them
• Small negative correlation with prejudice
• Extrinsic religious orientation use religion to
  achieve nonreligious goals and thus to provide
  security, sociability, status, etc.
• Small positive correlation with prejudice

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Quest Orientation

• Quest view of religiosity as a search for
  answers to questions about the meaning of life
• Reflects an open-mindedness and willingness to
  change.
• Hypothesized to be negatively correlated with
  prejudice supported by research.
• More strongly related to prejudice than either
  intrinsic or extrinsic orientation.

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Religious Fundamentalism

• Belief that there is one set of religious
  teachings that clearly contain the fundamental
  truth about humanity and a deity and that those
  who believe and follow these fundamental
  teachings have a special relationship with the
  deity.
• It is consistently associated with prejudice.

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Political Orientation and Prejudice

• Very controversial topic in psychology of
  prejudice
• Research has consistently found a correlation
  between endorsement of conservative political
  beliefs and prejudice.
• Symbolic prejudice approach has been criticized.

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Conservatism and Prejudice

• Why is there a relationships between conservatism
  and prejudice?
• Two principal explanations
• 1. Endorsement of conservative beliefs is
  correlated with both SDO and RWA, which are
  themselves related to prejudice.
• Social dominance theory suggests that prejudice
  is caused by SDO and RWA rather than a
  conservative belief system.
• Conservatism does not cause prejudice rather,
  some prejudiced people use the conservative
  belief system as a means of justifying their
  prejudices.

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Conservatism and Prejudice

• 2. Attribution-value model of prejudice explain
  that conservatives are more likely than liberals
  to see people as being responsible for negative
  outcomes they experience.
• They are more likely to be prejudiced because
  they are more likely to perceive others as
  violating an important social value and dislike
  them for it.

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Liberalism and Prejudice

• Liberals can be prejudiced as well.
• Liberals exhibit aversive prejudice whereas
  conservatives exhibit modern-symbolic prejudice.