MULTICULTURALISM

"The Causes of Prejudice"
Vincent N. Parrillo"
Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing,
Columbo, Cullen and Lisle, (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2004).

          Parrillo presents the complicated array of sources of prejudice, incorporating both psychological and sociological perspectives. Within the psychological explanation, prejudice may originate in the cognitive level as beliefs or perceptions of another group as threatening, inferior, seclusive or intrusive or other negative categories. The rejection of all outgroups as inferior is called "ethnocentrism." The emotional level of prejudice incorporates the negative emotions of fear or envy or contempt. This does not explain the source of these beliefs and emotions. Furthermore, these do not always lead to action, they exist solely within the mind. The action-oriented level of prejudice refers to the tendency to act based on the emotions and beliefs, but the explanation of action requires another level of analysis.

          Parrillo includes several explanations of the source of beliefs and emotions of prejudice. The natural human need for self-justification can either follow subjugation, or merely explain social distancing as a psychological balancing act. It can also derive independently from the prestige hierarchy and precede any action. Those who explain prejudice as a consequence of an authoritarian personality claim that abuse of people in minority groups represents displaced aggression to compensate for feelings of insecurity and fear. However, the correlation between harsh discipline of children and authoritarian is not proof of a linear causation. Prejudice may also arise from attitudes learned from adults independently apart from the discipline process, or it may derive from a broader, common social environment. Another psychological explanation attributes prejudice to low self-esteem.

          Explanations at the boundary of psychology and sociology blame prejudice on frustration as a result of relative deprivation, the redirection of anger toward a visible vulnerable and socially acceptable target. On the large scale this is known as scape-goating, which requires a group that is highly visible according to physical appearance, not strong enough to strike back, in easy access and concentrated in one area, a past target of hostility and a symbol of an unpopular concept. Many different groups have fit this description in times past. The most interesting support for this explanation is the correlation found by Hovland and Sears between the decline of cotton prices and increasing numbers of Blacks lynched between 1882 and 1930.

          This explanation ignores the role of culture and fails to show a causal relation-sometimes aggression does not come from frustration and sometimes frustration does not lead to aggression.

          Sociology attributes prejudice to the natural process by which individuals acquire the values, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of other people in their social group. Although this explains the transmission of prejudice between generations, it does not explain the origin, or the rise or fall in relative levels of prejudice.

          American history does show some correlation between economic competition and hostility-such as the rise in nativist groups during economic depressions and the decline of antagonism when groups retreat into urban enclaves and specialty occupations. However, this explanation fails to explain prejudice against groups that are too small or economically too distant to pose a threat to the dominant group.

          The concept of social norms claims that prejudice targets people in those groups that violate social norms. It also produces incentives and reprisals to make people conform, even in the case of conforming to community norms of prejudice against some outgroup. According to researchers, " . . . induced compliance can change social significant attitudes," which affects the broader structure of belief (589).