PSYC12H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Counterintuitive, Implicit Stereotype, Rastafari
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Chapter 4: The Prejudiced Personality: Are Some People More Likely to Feel
Prejudice?
PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVES
Authoritarianism
- Adorno et al (1950)
oExplained in psychodynamic terms
oPersonality structures flawed in such a way that they are
conditioned to be especially likely to adopt prejudiced attitudes
o“Authoritarian personality”; authoritarians
certain patterns of prejudice, childhood upbringing and
relationships with rents tend to be quite common
authoritarians
•more likely to be submissive to authority
•to adhere strictly to mid-class traditions/values
•think very rigidly (no grey areas!)
More findings
•They tended to hold prej against many groups
•Hate deviant impulses (i.e. fear, anger, sex)
•more likely to externalize these unacceptable
impulses to others via projection
oi.e. displaced to stereotyped grps
•don’t feel they harbour neg attitudes—characteristics
attributed
ovarious min grps
•depen and hatred from rentsso channel toward min
grps
oAutho personality characteristics
Can be found in some minority-grp members
•i.e. Jews who have high measure of antidemocratic
values/attitudes
onot only prej toward other groups, but more
likely to be anti-Semitic
oWHY the correlation?- not sure….
result of child developing the author personality charc OR
simply internalizing the rents values + ethnic attitudes?
Character- Conditioned Prejudice
- Allport (1954)
oAdded to Adorno
Personality is a strong contributer in developing prejudiced
attitudes
oAlso explained in psychodynamic terms
oBelieved that preju personality emerged out of a “crippled” ego
Indiv feels threatened, insecure, fearful of everything!
Also suggested these ppl repressed their fears and
insecurities (to face shortcomings)
This leads to many of the same charc as the authoritarian
individual
•Ambivalence towards rents
•Moralism
•Need for definiteness
•Dichotomization (B&W thinking)
Problems with the Psychodynamic Approach
- 4 main reasons for decline of the psychodyn theory
o1. Researcher more critical of psychoanal approaches to
personality
i.e. Smith and Rosen found
•inverse correlation btw author person scores (f scale)
and “world-mindedness”
oWM concept = attitudes towards acceptance of
ppl from other countries
i.e. Martin and Westie
•prej may be due to intolerant personality
otended to be suspicious of politicians, intolerant
of ambiguity, more
superstitious….mystical….low score in
compassion, trust etc.
BOTH uncover the same findings as adorno, but do it
without assuming the psychodynamic processes that were a
“causal” force in the autho person creation
o2. Methodological/conceptual problems with notion of
“Authoritarian personality”
Using F scale (Facism), A-S scale (anti-Semit), E scale
(ethnocent)
•Not worded properly
o3. Theory only explained the prejudice in a sm subset of the
population
what about the people who did not show author peronsality?
Why was prejudice stronger in certain regions?
o4. Auth-person perspective suggest that there is little hope of
changing an autho indiv to be more accepting of others