PSYC12H3 Lecture 6: Lecture 6
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If so, that would explain why prejudicial ways of thinking and acting may persist, even though contemporary environments are very different in very many ways. Prehistoric dangers and contemporary prejudices: schaller et al. Individuals who feel chronically vulnerable to interpersonal danger i. e. , those who believe that the world is dangerous also express more prejudice against out-groups. Intergroup vigilance theory implies that prejudice should be enhanced by dangerous contexts. Indeed, it has been estimated that parasitic infections have been responsible for more human deaths than all other causes of death put together (inhorn & brown, Thus, over the course of human history, avoidance and social exclusion of subjectively foreign peoples may have been functional in the avoidance of disease. If this is true then variables connoting personal vulnerability to disease should facilitate prejudicial reactions to unfamiliar ethnic out-groups. A series of studies have indeed found just that.
