Prejudice

Prejudice refers to preconceived attitudes or evaluations directed towards individuals or groups based on perceived membership in social categories. These attitudes, whether favourable or unfavourable, are typically formed without adequate knowledge or experience and are resistant to rational argument. Prejudice may relate to characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, social class, sexual orientation, age, disability, physical appearance, occupation or cultural practices. It functions as both an emotional response and a cognitive judgement, shaping social behaviour and intergroup relations across societies.

Definitions and Conceptual Foundations

Prejudice encompasses affective, cognitive and evaluative elements. Emotionally, it can emerge as dislike or discomfort towards members of an outgroup. Cognitively, it involves categorical assumptions or beliefs that are not grounded in direct evidence. Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a feeling, positive or negative, toward a person or thing that precedes or is not based on actual experience. This definition highlights both favourable biases and hostile attitudes.
William James argued that many people mistake the reshuffling of existing prejudices for genuine thinking. Contemporary scholars such as Lene Auestad describe prejudice as a process of symbolic transfer in which value-laden meanings become attached to socially constructed categories and then to individuals perceived to belong to those categories. Prejudices are often resistant to change and involve overgeneralisation, leading to distortions in social perception.
Because of its capacity to legitimise hostility, exclusion or violence, international organisations have identified prejudice as a potential threat to security. In contexts where prejudice is mobilised for scapegoating or inciting aggression, it can endanger groups, destabilise nations and undermine global peace.

Etymology

The word prejudice has been part of English since the early fourteenth century. It derives from the Old French préjudice, itself rooted in the Latin praeiudicium, meaning ‘judgement made beforehand’. The etymology underscores its defining feature: forming judgements prior to full understanding.

Early Research and Historical Perspectives

The first psychological investigations into prejudice emerged in the 1920s, heavily influenced by the social ideologies of the time. Many early studies were framed around attempts to assert white superiority. A 1925 review of dozens of studies concluded that supposed racial hierarchies supported a belief in white mental dominance. These early endeavours were later criticised for methodological flaws and ideological bias.
During the 1930s and 1940s, rising concern about antisemitism and the horrors associated with Nazi ideology inspired new theoretical directions. Prejudice came to be viewed as pathological. Scholars such as Theodor Adorno linked prejudice to personality types, proposing that an authoritarian personality—characterised by rigidity, obedience to authority and strict adherence to hierarchies—predisposed individuals to prejudiced attitudes, particularly towards groups perceived as lower in status.

Cognitive Approaches and Categorical Thinking

Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice (1954) marked a turning point by framing prejudice as a product of normal cognitive processes. He argued that humans rely on categories to interpret the world efficiently. Once formed, these categories serve as the basis for ‘normal prejudgment’, making it impossible to eliminate categorical thinking entirely. However, categorisation becomes harmful when rigid categories are paired with negative evaluations or stereotypes.
Allport also emphasised the contact hypothesis, which proposes that meaningful interaction between groups can reduce prejudice under appropriate conditions—such as equal status, shared goals and institutional support.

Ingroup Favouritism and Attribution Processes

By the 1970s, research showed that prejudice often results more from ingroup favouritism than overt hostility towards outgroups. Marilyn Brewer argued that people reserve positive feelings, such as admiration and trust, for members of their own group, rather than expressing direct hatred towards outsiders.
Thomas F. Pettigrew introduced the ultimate attribution error, a systematic bias where individuals attribute negative outgroup behaviour to inherent dispositions but explain away similar ingroup behaviour as situational. Positive behaviour by outgroup members tends to be dismissed as exceptional, accidental or driven by special advantage, reinforcing negative evaluations.
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl argued that prejudice should be understood in the plural—prejudices—each associated with distinct character structures. For example, she linked antisemitism to obsessional traits, racism to hysterical tendencies and sexism to narcissistic tendencies.

Contemporary Psychological Theories

A range of modern theories explains the persistence and variability of prejudice.

• Outgroup homogeneity effect: Individuals perceive members of an outgroup as more alike than members of their ingroup. Experiments with university students showed that people overestimate the uniformity of rival groups while acknowledging diversity within their own.
• Justification–suppression model: People experience a tension between expressing prejudice and maintaining a positive self-image. They therefore seek justifications that enable prejudiced behaviour without undermining their moral self-concept.
• Realistic conflict theory: Competition for scarce resources fosters hostility and prejudice. The classic Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that even trivial rewards can produce hostility between groups, which can be reduced when groups must cooperate to achieve shared goals.
• Integrated threat theory (ITT): This approach combines insights from previous models and proposes four types of perceived threats that generate prejudice:
  • Realistic threats involve material concerns such as employment or safety.
  • Symbolic threats arise from perceived clashes in values, beliefs or cultural practices.
  • Intergroup anxiety refers to discomfort or unease during interactions with outgroup members.
  • Negative stereotypes create expectations of harmful or undesirable behaviour from outgroups.

ITT emphasises that individuals operate within social contexts where group identities are central to self-concept.

• Social dominance theory: This theory views societies as group-based hierarchies. Dominant groups maintain their position by promoting legitimising myths—beliefs or norms that justify inequality. Discriminatory hiring practices or biased merit standards can function as such myths, sustaining unequal access to resources.

Psychological Consequences

Prejudice can carry significant psychological effects for both targets and holders of prejudiced attitudes. Those who experience prejudice may develop depression, reduced self-esteem and chronic stress. Internalised prejudice, in which individuals adopt negative beliefs about their own group, can similarly lead to emotional distress and mental health difficulties.
Some theorists, such as Paul Bloom, argue that prejudice arises from cognitive processes essential to human functioning. Categorisation enables individuals to navigate complex environments by drawing on prior experience to make rapid predictions. While often useful and generally accurate, this process may also produce harmful generalisations when misapplied to social groups.