The Social Psychology of Prejudice

This volume provides a comprehensive and concise overview on the nature and causes of prejudice. The importance of a scientific understanding of prejudice and racism, different approaches to the definition and conceptualization of prejudice, and the relation of prejudice and behavior are considered. John Duckitt also contributes a unique historical analysis of social scientific understandings of prejudice. He integrates an otherwise confusing mass of popular theories and perspectives into a coherent explanatory framework and develops this into a systemic multilevel approach to the problem of reducing prejudice in society and individuals. From Duckitt's perspective, prejudices are remarkable not in their existence, but in their ubiquity--the ease with which they can be aroused, their variety of expression, and the tenacity with which they are held. He demonstrates that, although it is unlikely that the universal psychological processes which underlie a fundamental propensity for prejudice can be changed, the degree to which they come to be expressed can be: at the level of social structure and intergroup relations, in the social influences to which individuals are exposed, and in individual susceptibility. The Social Psychology of Prejudice will be of particular use to social scientists in the fields of psychology, sociology, political science, and anthropology.