Prejudice

1
Chapter 2

• Prejudice Discrimination

SOC 327 Race Ethnic Relations
2
Categorization

• Tendency for simple classificatory systems to
  order thinking and simplify a myriad social
  differences skin color, language, religion, etc.
• But acting on such simple social categories
  hardens them into social realities, such as
  historical discrimination of certain groups,
  which in turn reinforce the social categories
  acting out on what we take for real has real
  consequences.
• E.g. blacks in the U.S. vs. coloreds in South
  Africa or the multiracial category proposed
  and rejected for the US census vs. many bubble
  rule.

3
Mertons Typology

• Non-Discr.
  Discriminates
• Unprejudiced all-weather liberal
  fair-weather liberal
• Prejudiced timid bigot
  all-weather bigot

4
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?

5
Types of Stereotypes

• Subordinate status, groups shortcomings gt
  inferiority stereotypes (highly genderized
  racialized, sometimes nationalized)
• Resistance to subordination, violent prone gt
  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

6
Attribution Theory

• CAUSES OF GOOD BEHAVIOR BAD
  BEHAVIOR .
• High Status natural/internal
  external/exceptional
• Low Status external/exceptional
  natural/internal
• Examples?

7
Theories of Prejudice

• Psychological
• Cultural
• Power/Conflict

8
Three Types of Prejudice

• 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?

9
Psychological Theories of Prejudice

• Projection seeing in others characteristics or
  feelings we cant admit we have in ourselves
  constructing an evil other mirror of ourselves
• Displacement attributing the causes of ones
  problems and frustrations to weaker,
  easily-targetable groups scapegoating
• Authoritarian personality those whom fascism,
  racism, sexism actually easily attracts

10
Cultural Theories of Prejudice

• Myrdals vicious circle of prejudice/discriminatio
  n
• gtinferior status gt prejudice/racism gt
  discrimination gt inferior statusgt
• Socialization of children prejudicescaught, not
  taught
• Bogarduss social distance scale
• seven degrees of proximity or intimacy
• Changing distance ordering reflect the varying
  degrees of current exploitation world events

11
Cultural Theories of Prejudice

• LaPieres emphasis on situation
• The Chinese couple 30's experiment in behavior
  face-to-face vs. mail
• Conforming at different times to highly
  prejudiced or unprejudiced communities or
  immediate groups
• gt saying doing depend on the situation or
  context or given group

12
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
• gt Embedded in every historical social system's
  hierarchical structures ideology

13
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 gt rampant false
  consciousness within the working and middle
  classes
• gt Solution Workers of the World, Unite!

14
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.

15
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.