Prejudice is an ever-present phenomenon because human beings are social animals.
We are born into a social unit called a family, and grow up in other social units
in school, groups of friends, the families that we ourselves establish, and the
professional and business groups in which we conduct our lives. Overriding all
this is the fact that major parts of our sense of self are embedded in the groups
to which we belong. Our identities are composed of building blocks that are group
memberships. We define ourselves in terms of the national, religious and
professional groups to which we belong. In fact, if we ask an individual the
question "Who are you?" we will receive a number of answers, demonstrating that
all these are group memberships. Thus, our sense of ourselves is not an isolated
"me," but a "me" connected to others in a variety of ways.
Group membership means dividing the social world into two major elements: the
"we" and the "not we," or "them." This distinction in itself is ample grounds for
the statement that stereotypes and prejudice are permanently with us. Only if we
accept this position as realistic will we be able to proceed to the next step and
consider ways to fight stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination.
But, having said that, we are faced daily with some people who are more prejudiced
and bigoted than others. Social psychologists have been involved for many years in
an effort to try and understand the mechanisms by which stereotypic judgments,
which are basic to human nature, can be altered and prejudice decreased.
The term stereotype, and the systematic consideration of stereotypes as guides to
interpersonal perceptions and behavior, was coined in 1929 by the journalist
Walter Lippman. Stereotypes can be viewed as whole pictures based on incomplete
information. We carry an endless list of such pictures, beginning with stereotypes
that we hold for certain professions or social groups, or for men and women.
Yet, these pictures are based on very inadequate information. We have never met
the people, know nothing about them, yet we seem to know everything about them.
What is the origin of this tendency to stereotype others? One explanation is that
stereotypes are adaptive mechanisms. They help us deal with a very complex and
overcrowded world. In order to be able to adapt to the world, we classify objects
into meaningful categories. We do the same with the "social objects" we encounter,
categorizing people based on their group memberships. Thus, from this perspective,
stereotyping is not always bad; it is a convenient mechanism for organizing
knowledge about a complex and ever changing world.
The stereotype as a convenient cognitive mechanism turns into a "social problem"
when it becomes prejudice. Thus, if a stereotype is a whole picture based on
inadequate information, prejudice is a negative picture based on inadequate
information. Prejudice is indeed a social disease. It refers to a situation
whereby we not only decide that Jews are pushy and argumentative, but we also draw
the behavioral conclusion and do not allow them to join the clubs to which we
belong. We not only decide that family X, whom we have never met, is a danger
because they are Arabs, but we also do not want them to be our neighbors. We not
only view a woman employee as less able than her male counterpart, but we also
decide to promote the man and not the woman. Thus, prejudice is especially
dangerous because it is closely linked to discrimination. We, as Jews, have
experienced discrimination as the lighter and less harmful consequence of
prejudice. Over the years we have also known prejudice to lead to murder, pogroms
and the Holocaust.
What, then, is the origin of prejudice? On the primary level, living in our
complex world necessitates categorizing others into identifiable social groups
with specific characteristics. But what do social psychologists, have to say about
the phenomenon of prejudice beyond this truism? We can offer theories about the
sources of prejudice, the psychological functions that it fulfills, and why one
individual is more prejudiced and discriminatory than another.
Proponents with a relatively optimistic view of human nature would say that
prejudice and discrimination are not a universal human truism. This approach holds
that the roots of prejudice lie in objective circumstances. Prejudice, they would
say, is a social phenomenon associated with real conflict over scarce resources.
This is a relatively optimistic conception because it contains a relatively simple
way to eliminate prejudice: abolish conflict and competition over scarce resources
between groups, and you do away with prejudice. One of the major proponents of
this approach was Muzafer Sherif.1
He believed that prejudices are rooted in
real conflicts, which can be created and abolished almost at will. To demonstrate
his point, Sherif arbitrarily divided children in a summer camp into two groups,
asking each to choose a name. At first, neither group showed any sign of
stereotypical perceptions of the other. The researchers then deliberately
introduced competition between them, a tug of war, for example. The prizes were
"scarce resources" that the children coveted (such as pocket knives). As the
competitions progressed a chilling picture emerged. The children engaged in
name-calling and fighting and developed prejudices about the other group. Members
of the groups, who previously were nice kids who happened to belong to the
Rattlers or the Eagles, suddenly viewed each other as lazy bums and cowards. In
the final phase, the researchers discussed ways to reduce the prejudice.
Explaining to the children about the importance of "brotherly love," and the
dangers of "prejudicing and stereotyping," did not work, Then, they developed a
effective technique, which they called the creation of "superordinate goals"; in
other words, generating situations that would force the rival groups to cooperate
in order to secure a goal that was important to both. Thus, for example, the
children from both groups had to cooperate and "chip in" if they wanted to go to a
movie. After only six days, the atmosphere changed completely: animosity
decreased, prejudices disappeared, and cross-group friendships developed.
This example demonstrates the way in which prejudice and its resolution is
associated with objective conflict over scarce resources. When competition was
stressed, conflict and prejudice flourished; when cooperation was highlighted, and
there was no conflict over real resources, prejudice and conflict disappeared.
This is an optimistic approach because it tells us that prejudice is not a product
of human nature, but of existing circumstances. Change the situation and you
eliminate prejudices. Thus, if we consider this approach in the context of the
Arab-Jewish conflict, one might say that the prejudices that Jews and Arabs hold
about each other are caused by the conflict over real, scarce resources, such as
land. Nevertheless, the same principle should hold. We downgrade the other group
because we are in conflict, rather than being in conflict because of prejudice. A
staunch believer in this approach would say that once the conflict over land was
ended, prejudices would disappear.
The same would apply to anti-Semitic prejudices, the "real conflict theorist"
would argue. Jews are the object of prejudice because of the competition between
them and other groups for economic and other social resources. Here the theorist
would even say that during times of great scarcity, when the competition is
particularly fierce, anti-Semitism will be exacerbated.
Is, then, prejudice and derogation of the other only a matter of real and
objective conflict? We have all witnessed cases were there was no competition or
"objective scarcity" and still prejudice flourished. Again, anti-Semitism is a
case in point. Perhaps objective conflict intensifies prejudice and
discrimination, but the phenomenon itself is part of our "social nature" This is
an opposing approach, known in social psychology as "social identity theory."2
This view links prejudice to a deeply-held psychological motivation that we all
share. Social identity theorists tell us that as social beings, a major part of
our sense of self is social, and assume that we are all motivated to maintain a
positive sense of self-esteem. One way of doing this is by favoring our own groups
and disparaging others: if my group is better than yours, it means that I am
better. It has nothing to do with real or imagined conflict. Prejudice, and
devaluing members of the other group, occur because of the fact that they belong
to the other group. This, of course, is a much more pessimistic view of prejudice.
It tells us that prejudice is an existential condition. We devalue others and
praise our kin because we are social animals.
This tradition of research has seen a number of impressive empirical validations.
In fact, numerous studies performed by Tajfel and his students and others,
demonstrate that any distinction between "us" and" them" is enough to create
prejudice.3
Real conflict is not the reason; it may aggravate the phenomenon,
but it does not cause it. In many studies even a meaningless division into groups,
based on a completely arbitrary criterion, was enough to create the "We are good,"
"People in your group are dumb and lazy," reaction. Thus, for example, when you
divide people by telling them "You belong to group A, and there is another group,
B," people will devalue and discriminate against people in group B. Some findings
show that this phenomenon occurs more intensively when the individual's sense of
adequate social identity is threatened.4
Which of these two approaches is "true"? Which explanation for prejudice is "more
valid"? Research and theory tell us that just as we hold prejudices against those
with whom we compete for scarce resources, we also hold them because we are human.
Anti-Semitism is a case in point. Throughout history there have been many
instances in which Jews were discriminated against because they were viewed as
competing with other segments of the population for money and prestige; yet we
also know of many instances in which anti-Semitism existed without Jews, or in
societies with a very small number of Jews. One explanation would extend the
phenomenon of displaced aggression into the realm of prejudice and anti-Semitism.
When we are frustrated we tend to be aggressive toward the source of our
frustration. Thus, for example, if we are sitting in a theater and someone
frustrates our wish to view the show comfortably by insisting on standing up, we
are likely to vent our anger on that person. But sometimes we cannot direct it
toward the source of our frustrations. The cost of shouting at our boss who
frustrated us all day at work may be too high. In this case we tend to displace
our aggression and attack someone less powerful. We may shout at our spouse, our
children or our dog. They had nothing to do with our frustrating day at work, but
since we cannot attack our boss, we use them as scapegoats.
In the case of prejudice, a prevailing view is that, especially during times of
great frustration caused by circumstances such as economic hardship, people tend
to displace their aggression by directing it toward less powerful social groups.
If aggression towards the ruling classes or the leadership is either too costly or
non-normative, it will be released on a relatively powerless social group. For
many years the Jews were such a group, and this would explain the process of
anti-Semitism in various societies and times. Yet it does not appear to be an
adequate explanation today. In many Western societies the Jews are not a powerless
minority; they are well integrated and are often part of the social élite.
Scapegoating against the powerless may explain pogroms in Eastern Europe, but not
prejudice in modern Western and democratic societies. To truly understand the
phenomenon of anti-Semitism, psychology is not enough; one must resort to a
cultural analysis of the age-old creation of the menacing myth of the Jew which,
however, is not within the scope of this article.
Finally, I will examine the personality of the individual who has a tendency to
become prejudiced and anti-Semitic. Given that prejudice is part and parcel of the
human condition, we know that some people are more prejudiced than others. A short
description of the "authoritarian personality" will perhaps serve to throw some
light on this subject. A few years after the end of World War II, a number of
psychologists pondered the psychological roots of the deadly anti-Semitism which
unleashed the Holocaust. These researchers, many of whom were Jews who had fled
Nazi Germany before the war, viewed the prejudiced personality as manifesting an
inter-personal conflict, or maladjustment.5
Their theory and research is couched
in the psychoanalytic tradition and views the authoritarian personality as someone
with a very wild Id, a rigid Super Ego and a weak Ego. This personality structure
results in an individual whose unconscious is a stormy pool of desires and
unfulfilled needs. In the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition, these needs are
mostly sexual and aggressive in nature. The very rigid Super Ego of such persons
causes them to adhere to conventional values which do not allow expression of
these unconscious needs. The source of these values is external and they are
devoutly adhered to. Thus, the strict and rigid Super Ego does not allow such
individuals to express their sexual and aggressive needs in a well-adjusted way.
While the more well-adjusted personality "negotiates" such conflicts to a better
solution, the authoritarian personality is caught in a conflict with which the
weak Ego cannot effectively cope. S/he is therefore ultra conservative, but highly
frustrated. The authoritarian personality deals with the conflict through the
adoption of a syndrome of symptoms: they seek power figures to succumb to, are
completely dependent on the views of these figures to define reality for them, and
engage in what is known as "authoritarian aggression" against anyone who seems to
be "out of line" of what is "right"; their world is divided into "black" and
"white"; they cannot tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty; and they externalize
their sexual impulses by projecting them onto others. In fact, these individuals
are experts on the sexual practices of their neighbors, as well as of Jews and
blacks, but cannot deal with their own sexuality.
Finally, these individuals make a very rigid distinction between "us" and "them,"
showing prejudice and aggression toward members of groups defined as "not us." In
this connection, this group of researchers constructed a questionnaire which
assessed the degree to which a person was authoritarian or not.6
The findings showed that individuals who scored high on this scale -- those who were described
as highly authoritarian -- also expressed greater levels of anti-Semitism. The
authors presented this personality structure as being the psychological perquisite
to holding fascist values, and labeled this measure of the authoritarian
personality "the fascism scale." This construct and theory has undergone a number
of revisions since it was first presented in the 1950s,7
but its findings are nevertheless highly significant. Beyond the general tendencies to hold prejudicial
and discriminatory attitudes, it demonstrates that some people are more prejudiced
and discriminatory than others. Further, it seems that being highly prejudiced and
anti-Semitic serves some deep-seated psychological functions of the individual
holding these views. In fact, the adoption of such positions is in itself a
resolution of internal conflicts of a maladjusted personality. Knowing this,
however, is no great comfort for the target of prejudice. The costs of prejudice
and discrimination are high, possibly unbearable, whether the discriminator is
psychologically well-adjusted or not. Nowhere is this more true than in the case
of anti-Semitism.
NOTES
M. Sherif, O.J. Harvey, B.J. White, W.R. Hood and C.W.
Sherif, Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robber's Cave Experiment (Norman,
Okla, 1961).
H. Tajfel and J. Turner, "The Social Identity Theory of
Intergroup Behavior," in S. Worchel and W.G. Austin (eds.), Psychology of
Intergroup Relations (Chicago, 1966), pp. 7-24.
Ibid.
H. Gites (ed.), Language, Ethnicity and Intergroup
Relations (London, 1977) and G.M. Breakwell, Coping with Threatened Identities
(London, 1986).
T.W. Adorno, E. Frankel-Brunswick, D.J. Lewinson and R.N.
Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950).
Ibid.
See, for example, B. Altmeyer, Enemies of Freedom:
Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism (San Francisco, CA, 1988).
