Transcript Psychology of Ethnocentrism Fall, 2006

Psychology of Prejudice
&
Ethnocentrism
Germany
Context
Post-WW II Consensus:
• Capitalist & communist countries 
more bureaucratic, technological,
rational, secular
• Nationalism, ethnocentrism, religious
passion, prejudice will recede & fade
away
Context
Post-1989: Consensus shattered
• Resurgence of religious fundamentalism
& ethnic nationalism
• Re-shaping societies around globe
• Main form of global strife
• “New Tribalism” ?
Northern Ireland:
Catholics and Protestants
Cambodia: “autogenocide”
Bosnia: “ethnic cleansing”
Rwanda
Sudan:
Muslim North vs. “pagan” South
Sudan today: Darfur
Israel - Palestine
Sri Lanka: Hindus vs. Buddhists
Sri Lanka: Buddhist
“fundamentalism”
Aug. 18, 2006
Buddhist Monks
Brawl at Sri Lanka
Peace Protest
India: Muslims vs. Hindus
Muslim “fundamentalism”
Taliban:
executions for immorality
France: National Front
France: North Africans riot
Christian
“Fundamentalism”
U.S.: KKK
U.S.:
white power
U.S.:
Campus Tension
Psych. Causes of Prejudice
• Cognition:
faulty thinking,
overgeneralization
• Emotion:
defense against inner conflict
• Group Conflict:
ideology for struggle
between groups
• Discomfort:
unfamiliarity, anxiety
Definitions
Joel Kovel, White Racism
• Prejudice = Individual attitudes &
stereotypes
vs.
• Racism = Social institutions which
advantage some group(s) and
disadvantage other(s)
Types of Racism / Prejudice
Joel 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
Dominative Racism
“A racism of direct, physical
oppression and sexual obsession,
belongs to the Old South, especially in
the years following slavery…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Metaracism
“...the psychological or prejudicial part
of racism is one of its most modifiable
features...”
Theories of Prejudice
• Prejudice through Conformity
• Authoritarian Personality
– “projection” theory
• Scapegoat Theory
– Frustration  aggression
• Economic & Political Competition
– Realistic group conflict
• Low Social Status
Conformity
• Eichmann
• Americans who move North or South
• Historical change in prejudices
• Coal miners:
– Prejudiced above ground
– Egalitarians below ground
Authoritarian Personality / R.W.A.
• Prejudice against all out-groups and
deviants
• Projection theory:
Negative stereotypes built from
projection of feared & rejected
characteristics
CNN
POSTED: 11:35 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."
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
Scapegoat Theory
Economic & Political Conflict
Realistic Group Conflict
• Colonial seizures of land
• Catholics & Protestants in Northern
Ireland
• M. Sherif: “Robbers Cave” Experiment