Prejudice: Feelings Toward Social Groups

Prejudice has been traditionally considered the feeling component of attitudes toward social groups. It reflects a
negative response to another person based solely on that person’s membership in a particular group—which
Gordon Allport, in his 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice, referred to as “antipathy” that is generalized to the
group as a whole. In that sense, prejudice is not personal—it is an affective reaction toward the category (Turner,
Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). In other words, a person who is prejudiced toward some social group
is predisposed to evaluate its members negatively because they belong to that group. Discrimination has been
traditionally defined as less favorable treatment or negative actions directed toward members of disliked groups
(Pettigrew, 2007). Whether prejudice will be expressed in overt discrimination or not will depend on the perceived
norms or acceptability of doing so (Crandall et al., 2002; Jetten, Spears, & Manstead, 1997). Indeed, as you will
see in the final section of this chapter, changing the perceived norms for treatment of a particular group is sufficient
to alter prejudice expression.

Research has illustrated that individuals who score higher on measures of prejudice toward a particular group do
tend to process information about that group differently than individuals who score lower on measures of prejudice.
For example, information relating to the targets of the prejudice is given more attention than information not
relating to them (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003). Indeed, those who are high in prejudice toward a particular
social group are very concerned with learning the group membership of a person (when that is ambiguous). This
is because they believe the groups have underlying essences—often some biologically based feature that
distinguishes that group from other groups, which can serve as justification for their differential treatment
(Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Estrada, 2001). As a result of consistently categorizing people in terms of their group
membership, one’s feelings about that group are legitimized, which results in discrimination (Talaska, Fiske, &
Chaiken, 2008).

As an attitude, prejudice is the negative feelings experienced on the part of the prejudiced when they are in the
presence of, or merely think about, members of the groups they dislike (Brewer & Brown, 1998). However, some
theorists have suggested that all prejudices are not the same—or at least they are not based on the same type of
negative feelings. According to this view, we may not be able to speak of “prejudice” as a generic negative
emotional response at all. Instead, we may need to distinguish between prejudices that are associated with specific
intergroup emotions including fear, anger, envy, guilt, or disgust (Glick, 2002; Mackie & Smith, 2002). As
depicted in Figure 6.12, even when the level of prejudice toward different groups (i.e., overall negative feelings
toward that group) is similar, distinct emotions can form the primary basis of prejudicial responses. For example,
these respondents’ primary emotional response toward Native Americans was pity, but their primary emotional
response toward gay men was disgust (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005).

Depending on what emotion underlies prejudice toward a particular group, the discriminatory actions that might
be expected could be rather different. For example, when people’s prejudice primarily reflects anger, then they
may attempt to directly harm the outgroup (Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000). In contrast, prejudice based on pity
or guilt might lead to avoidance of the outgroup because of the distress their plight evokes (Miron, Branscombe,
& Schmitt, 2006). According to this perspective, prejudice reduction efforts may need to tackle the specific
intergroup emotion on which prejudice toward a group is based. For example, to the extent that fear is reduced
when prejudice is based on that emotion, then discrimination can also be reduced (Miller, Smith, & Mackie, 2004).

Research also suggests that inducing some negative emotions can directly lead to discrimination (DeSteno,
Dasgupta, Bartlett, & Cajdric, 2004). In two experiments, these researchers found that after experiencing anger,
but not sadness or a neutral state, more negative attitudes toward an outgroup was expressed. In these studies,
participants were first assigned to minimal groups—they were falsely told that they belong to a social group that
was created in the context of the study. Specifically, participants were told there were members of the group
“overestimaters” or “underestimaters” of event frequencies. Once participants were categorized in this way, they
were given an emotioninducing writing task (e.g., to write in detail about when they felt very angry, very sad, or
neutral in the past). Finally, participants were asked to evaluate other members of their ingroup (e.g., those wearing
the same colored wristband) or the outgroup (e.g., those wearing a different-colored wristband).

As shown in Figure 6.13, reaction times to associate positive or negative evaluation words with the ingroup and
outgroup differed depending on the type of negative emotion participants experienced. When feeling angry, they
more rapidly associated the outgroup with negative evaluations and the ingroup with positive evaluations, whereas
it took considerably longer to learn to associate the outgroup with positive evaluations and the ingroup with
negative evaluations. When either feeling sad or neutral, in contrast, no difference in time to associate the ingroup
and outgroup with positive or negative evaluations was obtained. This suggests that even incidental feelings of
anger—those caused by factors other than the outgroup per se (in this case, the writing task) can generate
automatic prejudice toward members of groups to which we do not belong.

As you can see, such implicit associations links between group membership and evaluative responses can be
triggered in a seemingly automatic manner as a result of ingroup and outgroup categorization. As we discussed in
Chapter 5, implicit attitudes can influence behavior (Fazio & Hilden, 2001; Greenwald et al., 2002). The important
point about such implicit prejudice is this: we may not be aware of it, although our judgments and decisions about
other people and how we interact with them can be influenced. Consider the decisions made by white participants
in a simple video game about whether to shoot or not shoot either black or white targets who were armed or
unarmed (Correll, Urland, & Ito, 2006). Overall, participants were quicker in deciding to shoot armed black targets
than armed white targets, and they were faster in deciding not to shoot unarmed whites compared to unarmed
blacks. Those who had stronger implicit associations between blacks and violence were especially likely to show
these decision biases. Such automatic prejudice effects are particularly difficult to inhibit following alcohol
consumption (Bartholow, Dickter, & Sestir, 2006). In these studies, participants’ ability to stop responding in a
stereotype-consistent fashion was lower when they drank alcohol compared to when no alcohol was consumed.

Before turning to a discussion of the many ways that prejudice can be expressed in overt behavior, we first address
two important questions: What motives might affect the extent to which prejudice is felt? What psychological
benefits might people get from expressing prejudice toward particular groups?

The Origins of Prejudice: Contrasting Perspectives

Several important perspectives have been developed to answer the question, Where does prejudice come from,
and why does it persist? The most general response to this question has focused on perceived threat—be it either
material or symbolic to a valued ingroup (Esses, Jackson, & Bennett-AbuyAyyash, 2010). We consider first how
perceptions of threat to self-esteem and group interests are critical for prejudice. Then we contemplate how
competition for scarce resources can increase prejudice. At the end of this section, we consider whether
categorizing the self as a member of a group, and others as members of a different group, is a sufficient condition
for prejudice to occur. Based on a cross-cultural study of 186 different societies, it is clear that the more important
loyalty to one’s own ingroup is, the greater the support there is for prejudice toward outgroups (Cohen, Montoya,
& Insko, 2006). So feelings about one’s own group are related to feelings about outgroups.

THREATS TO SELF-ESTEEM It is certainly true that prejudice cannot be understood unless threat and how it
affects people is taken into account. People want to see their own group positively (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), which
in practice means more positively than some other group. When an event threatens people’s perceptions of their
group’s value, they may retaliate by derogating the source of the threat. It is also the case that perceiving a threat
to our group can lead us to identify more with our ingroup. Several studies, using reminders of the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, as the threatening event, have found increases in identification with the nation and
representatives of it such as former President George W. Bush (Landau et al., 2004).

Does the event that threatens one’s group identity need to involve possible death, or is it sufficient that it simply
implies your group is not as positive as you would like to see it, for prejudice responses to occur? To test this idea,
American college students, who differed in the extent to which they placed value on their identity as Americans,
were shown one of two 6-minute videos based on the movie Rocky IV (Branscombe & Wann, 1994). In one clip,
Rocky (an American boxer played by Sylvester Stallone) won the match against Ivan (a supposedly Russian
contender). This version was not threatening, for it supports Americans’ positive views of their group as winners.
In the other clip, Rocky loses the fight to Ivan, the Russian. This version was threatening, particularly to those
who highly value their identity as Americans, and it lowered feelings of self-esteem based on group membership.
The question is, Can exposure to such a minor threat to identity in the laboratory result in prejudice? The answer
obtained was yes—those who were highly identified as Americans and who saw the threatening Rocky “as loser”
film clip showed increased prejudice toward Russians and advocated they be kept out of the United States in the
future. In fact, the more these participants negatively evaluated Russians, the more their self-esteem based on their
group membership subsequently increased.

This research suggests that holding prejudiced views of an outgroup allows group members to bolster their own
group’s image, particularly when it has been threatened. By “putting down” members of another group, we can
affirm our own group’s comparative value and such prejudice is most strongly expressed when threat is
experienced. The important role of such perceived threat to one’s group has been demonstrated in a wide variety
of group contexts: Whites’ prejudice toward black Americans (Stephan et al., 2002), prejudice toward various
immigrant groups (Esses, Jackson, Nolan, & Armstrong, 1999; Stephan, Renfro, Esses, Stephan, & Martin, 2005),
Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Tausch, Hewstone, Kenworthy, & Cairns, 2007), and men’s
prejudice and sabotaging actions toward women they perceive as “moving in” on males’ traditional territory
(Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). Evidence for this process, illustrated in Figure 6.14, has been obtained in numerous
studies.

Overall, then, advantaged groups exhibit prejudice toward outgroups most strongly when they are experiencing a
threat to their group’s image and interests. Because of the critical role that perceived threat can play in maintaining
and escalating prejudice, recent research has addressed how such threat may be reduced (Riek, Mania, Gaertner,
McDonald, & Lamoreaux, 2010). They found that simply reminding people who value their ingroup identity—as
Democrats or Republicans—that they shared a more inclusive identity (American) with the other group lowered
perceived threat and prejudice. We return to this technique, known as recategorization, in our discussion of
procedures for reducing prejudice.

COMPETITION FOR RESOURCES AS A SOURCE OF PREJUDICE It is sad but true that the things people
want most—good jobs, nice homes—are in short supply. Quite frequently, these are zero-sum outcomes—if one
group gets them, the other group can’t. Consider the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, which has been
ongoing since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Both want to control Jerusalem. This sort of conflict over
desirable territory has been considered within realistic conflict theory to be a major cause of prejudice (Bobo, 1983).
The theory further suggests that as competition escalates, the members of the groups involved will come to view
each other in increasingly negative terms. They may label each other as “enemies,” view their own group as
morally superior, draw the boundaries between themselves and their opponents more firmly, and, under extreme
conditions, may come to see the opposing group as not even human (Bar-Tal, 2003). From this perspective, what
starts out as simple competition can escalate into full-scale prejudice (see Figure 6.15).

A classic study by Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif (1961) confirms that competition can intensify conflict,
although as you will see, it may not be the most basic cause of conflict between groups. Well-adjusted middle-
class boys were brought to a summer camp called Robber’s Cave, located in rural Oklahoma. The boys were
randomly assigned to two different groups and placed in well-separated cabins so they were unaware of the
existence of the other group. Initially, the boys in each cabin enjoyed hiking, swimming, and other sports, and the
boys rapidly developed strong attachments to their group—choosing names for themselves (Rattlers and Eagles)
and making up flags with their groups’ symbols on them. In the second phase of the study, the groups were brought
together and they began a series of competitions. They were told that the winning team would receive a trophy
and various desirable prizes; since the boys wanted the prizes badly, the stage was set for intense competition.

As the boys competed, the tension between the groups rose. At first it was limited to verbal taunts, but soon
escalated into direct acts such as when the Rattlers broke into the Eagles’ cabin, overturning beds and generally
wreaking havoc. The two groups voiced increasingly negative views of each other, while heaping praise on their
own group. In short, strong prejudice developed.

In the final phase, competition was eliminated, but that alone did not reduce the negative reactions toward the
other group. Only when conditions were altered so that the groups found it necessary to work together to reach
superordinate goals ones they both desired but neither group could achieve alone did dramatic change occur. The
boys worked cooperatively together to restore their water supply (secretly sabotaged by the researchers),
combined funds to rent a movie, and jointly repaired a broken-down truck so they could all go into town to get
ice cream. The tensions between the groups gradually decreased, and many cross-group friendships developed.

Despite what Sherif’s research showed about factors that can elevate and reduce intergroup conflict, what he did
not show is whether competition is necessary for prejudice to develop. In fact, prior to the introduction of the
competition, the mere knowledge of the other group was sufficient to generate name-calling between the two
groups of boys. Perhaps simply being a member of a group and identifying with it is sufficient for prejudice to
emerge. This is the idea that Tajfel and Turner (1986) developed further in their social identity theory, which we
turn to next.
ROLE OF SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION: THE US-VERSUS-THEM EFFECT “How is genocide possible?”
This was a question that preoccupied Henri Tajfel throughout his life, in part because he was a Jew who had lived
through the Nazi Holocaust. Unlike some who believed that the source of such intergroup violence lay in
irrationality, Tajfel (1982) believed that there were important cognitive processes involved. He argued that a
history of conflict, personal animosity, individual self-interest, or competition were not necessary to create group
behavior. Perhaps, as with boys in Sherif’s study, if people were merely categorized into different groups, then
you would see the beginnings of ingroup loyalty and outgroup discrimination. Indeed, he was searching for a
“baseline” condition where prejudice would be lacking when he stumbled onto the most basic condition needed
to create discrimination.

Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, and Flament (1971) originated a paradigm for studying intergroup behavior in which
participants were categorized into groups on some trivial basis. He had participants view a set of pictures— as
shown in Figure 6.16—by the artists Klee and Kandinsky. In all instances, participants were assigned to one group
or the other randomly, but were told that it was based on whether they had shared a preference for Klee or
Kandinsky paintings. Each group that was so created had no purpose, no history, no contact among its members,
no leader that is, nothing whatsoever that would cause it to be a real “group.”

The task of the participants was simply to allocate points or money between two other participants—one of whom
was an ingroup member and one of whom was an outgroup member. Participants on average awarded members
of their own group more money than members of the other group. Furthermore, when participants could choose
to allocate more money in absolute terms to members of their own group, they chose to allocate smaller absolute
amounts if that would also mean allocating relatively less to members of the other group, suggesting that the
participants were attempting to maximize the difference between the rewards given to the two groups. The results
of these experiments were shocking at the time because they illustrated how people could be divided into distinct
categories on almost any basis, and doing so could result in different perceptions of, and actions toward, us
(members of their own group) versus them (members of the other group).

Once the social world is divided into “us” and “them,” it takes on emotional significance. Some differences are
granted social importance and have meaning for our identities (Oakes et al., 1994). People in the “us” category
are viewed in more favorable terms, whereas those in the “them” category are perceived more negatively. Indeed,
it may be widely expected that some groups should be disliked, whereas prejudice toward other groups is seen as
not justified (Crandall et al., 2002). For example, college students who were asked to rate the extent to which it
was appropriate or legitimate to express prejudice toward 105 different social groups did so easily. The top 10
groups it is acceptable to display prejudice toward, and the 10 for whom it is least legitimate to express prejudice
against, are shown in Table 6.4.

How, precisely, does social categorization result in prejudice? Social identity theory suggests that individuals seek
to feel positively about the groups to which they belong, and part of our self-esteem is derived from our social
group memberships. Since people who are identified with their group are most likely to express favoritism toward
their own group and a corresponding bias against outgroups, valuing our own group will have predictable
consequences for prejudice. (For more information on how feeling “fused with our group” can affect willingness
to engage in extreme actions to benefit and protect it, please see our special feature, “EMOTIONS AND
PREJUDICE: When Are People Willing to Die and Kill for Their Group?”.)

Key points

 Prejudice is the feelings component of attitudes toward members of a group as a whole.

 Discrimination refers to the unfavorable treatment or negative actions directed toward members of disliked groups.
Whether discrimination will be expressed or not depends on the perceived norms or acceptability of doing so.
 Research indicates that prejudice may reflect more specific underlying emotional responses toward different
outgroups, including fear, anger, guilt, pity, and disgust. Different behaviors are likely, depending on the emotional
basis of the prejudice.
 Implicit associations—links between group membership and evaluations—can be triggered automatically from
categorizing others as ingroup or outgroup members.
 Prejudice persists because derogating outgroups can protect our self-esteem. Threat to our group’s interests can
motivate prejudice, and perceived competition between groups for resources can escalate conflict.
 The Robber’s Cave study of two groups of boys at a summer camp who had been in conflict showed that
superordinate goals where desired outcomes can only be obtained if the groups work together can help to reduce
conflict.
 According to social identity theory, prejudice is derived from our tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them”
and to view our own group more favorably than various outgroups. This is true even when the groups are formed on
a trivial basis.
 People may feel it is legitimate to display prejudice toward some groups, but see it as highly illegitimate to express
prejudice toward other groups.
 People who are fused with their group are particularly likely to sacrifice their own lives to save other ingroup
members. People fused with Spain, when reminded of the terrorist attacks on their nation, expressed a greater
willingness to shove aside another Spaniard and kill themselves in order to kill the terrorists compared to people not
fused with Spain.