Prejudice
Gordon Allport, in his classic The Nature of Prejudice, defined prejudice as "an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization" (1954, p. 9). This phrasing neatly captures the notion that both inaccurate beliefs and negative feelings are implicated in prejudice. To these "cognitive" and "affective" dimensions of prejudice, some analysts add "conative," referring to action orientation (Klineberg 1972) and prescription (Harding et al. 1969). Allport's circumspection on the conative implications of prejudice—he said "(prejudice) may be felt or expressed" (1954, p. 9)—foreshadowed our growing understanding that the correspondence of behavior with cognitions and feelings is uncertain, a research issue in its own right (Schuman and Johnson 1976).
Racial and ethnic prejudice was Allport's primary interest. Emerging social issues have brought expanded attention to other forms of prejudice—against women, the elderly, handicapped persons, AIDS patients, and others. This discussion will focus on racial prejudice among white Americans, in the expectation that parallels and points of contrast will continue to make race relations research relevant to other forms of prejudice.
Trends and Patterns
For many years, derogatory stereotypes, blatant aversion to interracial contact, and opposition in principle to racial equality were seen as the central manifestations of race prejudice, virtually defining the social science view of the problem.
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