Prejudice - Prejudice: Social Problem, Or Problem Concept, The Structure Of Intergroup Attitudes, The Varieties Of Prejudice
negative lay bad unjustified
The concept of prejudice emerged during the early twentieth century and soon became the most prominent social scientific and lay concept to describe antipathy for others based on their social group or category membership. Social scientists have typically defined prejudice as a negative intergroup attitude. Many, however, have added the rider that this negative intergroup attitude is bad or unjustified in some way, and it is this broader concept that has been entrenched in lay discourse. This conceptualization raises several issues. One is whether it is indeed possible to distinguish between negative intergroup attitudes that are prejudiced (that is, bad or unjustified) and those that are not. A second issue is that of the structure and dimensionality of these negative intergroup attitudes, a third is whether there are different types or kinds of prejudice, and a fourth is that of how prejudice has been explained and understood.
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The perspective of prejudice as a "bad" or "unjustified" attitude arises out of the social-problems approach to the study of intergroup relations, which was prominent for much of the twentieth century. This perspective implied a distinction between those intergroup attitudes that were socially problematic and those that were not, and only the former qualified as prejudi…
Given that prejudice is conceptualized as a negative intergroup attitude, the issue of the structure and dimensionality of these negative intergroup attitudes arises. Social psychologists have distinguished three distinct components of prejudice or ways in which negative intergroup attitudes can be expressed or manifested. These are in the form of negative stereotypes (cognitive component) of the …
While prejudiced intergroup attitudes should always involve cognitive, affective, and behavioral expressions in the form of
unfavorable stereotypes, feelings of antipathy, and behavioral expressions of prejudice, a somewhat different issue is that of whether different kinds or forms of prejudice exist. This idea originated from research in the United States, which suggested that two different kin…
There have been a number of historical shifts in the dominant explanations of prejudice, and it is possible to identify six distinct periods in the way in which prejudice has been understood by social scientists. These paradigmatic shifts in explanation have been influenced by social and historical circumstances making particular questions or issues about the nature and causation of prejudice sali…
A number of different theoretical approaches to explaining prejudice dominated social scientific inquiry at different stages during the twentieth century with each having distinctive social policy implications. These different approaches seemed to emerge in response to specific historical circumstances that made particular questions about the nature or causation of prejudice salient for social sci…
Brigham, John. "Ethnic Stereotypes." Psychological Bulletin 76 (1971): 15–38. Crosby, Faye, and Susan Clayton. "Affirmative Action and the Issue of Expectancies." Journal of Social Issues 46 (1990): 61–79. Devine, Patricia. "Implicit Prejudice and Stereotyping: How Automatic Are They?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001): 7…
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