Page 343 - The Social Animal

Prejudice 325

the other hand, it is conceivable that, as humans, we are different
from the lower animals; perhaps our natural inclination is to be
friendly, open, and cooperative. If this is the case, then prejudice does
not come naturally. Rather, the culture (parents, our communities,
the media) may, intentionally or unintentionally, instruct us to assign
negative qualities and attributes to people who are different from us.
Although we human beings may have inherited biological ten-
dencies that predispose us toward prejudicial behavior, no one knows
for sure whether prejudice is a vital and necessary part of our biolog-
ical makeup. In any case, most social psychologists would agree that
the specifics of prejudice must be learned, either through imitating
the attitudes and behavior of others or through the ways in which we
construct our own psychological reality.
In this section, we will look at five basic causes of prejudice: (1)
economic and political competition or conflict, (2) displaced aggres-
sion, (3) maintenance of status or self-image, (4) dispositional prej-
udice, and (5) conformity to existing social norms. These five causes
are not mutually exclusive—indeed, they may all operate at once—
but it would be helpful to determine the importance of each one be-
cause any action we are apt to recommend in an attempt to reduce
prejudice will depend on what we believe to be the major cause of
prejudice. Thus, if I believe bigotry is dispositional and, as such, is
deeply ingrained in the human personality, I might throw my hands
up in despair and conclude that, in the absence of deep psychother-
apy, the majority of prejudiced people will always be prejudiced.This
would lead me to scoff at attempts to reduce prejudice by reducing
competitiveness or by attempting to counteract the pressures of con-
formity. Let us take a close look at each of the five causes.

Economic and Political Competition Prejudice can result
from economic and political forces. According to this view, given that
resources are limited, the dominant group might attempt to exploit
or derogate a minority group to gain some material advantage. Prej-
udiced attitudes tend to increase when times are tense and there is
conflict over mutually exclusive goals. This is true whether the goals
are economic, political, or ideological.Thus, prejudice has existed be-
tween Anglo- and Mexican-American migrant workers as a function
of a limited number of jobs, between Arabs and Israelis over disputed
territory, and between northerners and southerners over the abolition