Psychology of Prejudice

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Psychology of PrejudiceEthnocentrism
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Germany
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Context

• Post-WW II Consensus
• Capitalist communist countries ?
• more bureaucratic, technological, rational,
  secular
  
• Nationalism, ethnocentrism, religious passion,
  prejudice will recede fade away

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Context

• Post-1989 Consensus shattered
• Resurgence of religious fundamentalism ethnic
  nationalism
  
• Re-shaping societies around globe
• Main form of global strife
• New Tribalism ?

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Northern IrelandCatholics and Protestants
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Cambodia autogenocide
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Bosnia ethnic cleansing
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Rwanda
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SudanMuslim North vs. pagan South
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Sudan today Darfur
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Israel - Palestine
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Sri Lanka Hindus vs. Buddhists
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Sri Lanka Buddhist fundamentalism
Aug. 18, 2006 Buddhist Monks Brawl at Sri Lanka P
eace Protest
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India Muslims vs. Hindus
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Muslim fundamentalism
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Talibanexecutions for immorality
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France National Front
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France North Africans riot
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Christian Fundamentalism
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U.S. KKK
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U.S.white power
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U.S.Campus Tension
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Psych. Causes of Prejudice

• Cognition faulty thinking, overgeneralization
• Emotion defense against inner conflict
• Group Conflict ideology for struggle between
  groups
  
• Discomfort unfamiliarity, anxiety

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Definitions Joel Kovel, White Racism

• Prejudice Individual attitudes stereotypes
• vs.
• Racism Social institutions which advantage
  some group(s) and disadvantage other(s)

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Types of Racism / PrejudiceJoel Kovel, White
Racism

• Dominative
• Emotionally-charged bigotry
• Origin in plantation slavery
• Aversive
• Emotionally cold avoidance
• Origin in northern segregation
• Metaracism
• Racism without deliberate prejudice
• Origin in post-Civil Rights era

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Dominative Racism
A racism of direct, physical oppression and
sexual obsession, belongs to the Old South,
especially in the years following slavery
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Aversive Racism
The racism of coldness and the fantasy of
dirt, belongs to the bourgeois life, proper,
being that form of racism characteristic of the
North, stable urban zones of segregation, and
suburbs.
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Metaracism
the racism of technocracy, i.e., one without
psychological mediation as such, in which racist
oppression is carried out directly through
economic and technocratic means
...racist oppression occurs today through the
seemingly automatic laws of the economic system.
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Metaracism
...the real object of contemporary racism
the workless black underclass, created by
structural economic injustice, cut off from their
bourgeoisiefied fellows, and set adrift among
family disorganization, wretched educational
opportunities, dwindling public services of all
kinds and decaying urban enclaves.
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Metaracism
...the psychological or prejudicial part of
racism is one of its most modifiable features...
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Theories of Prejudice

• Prejudice through Conformity
• Authoritarian Personality
• projection theory
• Scapegoat Theory
• Frustration ? aggression
• Economic Political Competition
• Realistic group conflict
• Low Social Status

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Conformity

• Eichmann
• Americans who move North or South
• Historical change in prejudices
• Coal miners
• Prejudiced above ground
• Egalitarians below ground

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Authoritarian Personality / R.W.A.

• Prejudice against all out-groups and deviants
• Projection theory
• Negative stereotypes built from projection of
  feared rejected characteristics

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CNN POSTED 1135 a.m. EST, November 6, 2006

Evangelical confesses to 'sexual immorality'
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- Less than a
day after being fired from leadership of the
evangelical mega-church he founded, the Rev. Ted
Haggard confessed Sunday to "sexual immorality"
and called himself "a deceiver and a liar."
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Scapegoat Theory

• Nazi anti-Semitism
• Lynchings 1882 1930 in South
• correlated with price of cotton
• States with highest divorce rates have strongest
  support for anti-gay marriage laws amendments
  
• anti-Chinese pogroms in Indonesia

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Scapegoat Theory
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Economic Political ConflictRealistic Group
Conflict

• Colonial seizures of land
• Catholics Protestants in Northern Ireland
• M. Sherif Robbers Cave Experiment