Causes of Prejudice

Prejudice is a "rigid and irrational generalization about an entire category of people"--and people can be prejudiced toward groups ranging from professions and religions to place of residence (e.g., city versus country) or the schools they attended (249). The most problematic forms of prejudice, however, are racial and ethnic biases. Racism is the most powerful and dangerous form of prejudice and consists of the belief that one racial type is inherently superior to another. These prejudices against people of different groups are easy enough to identify in most cases. Explaining the motivations behind racism, however, is far more difficult. Macionis supplies four principal theoretical approaches to prejudice: the scapegoat theory; the authoritarian personality theory; cultura

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Category: Psychology - C