Prejudice

Prejudice is an emotional response toward someone based on the social group they appear to belong to. It often describes a preformed—typically negative—judgment about a person, rooted in perceived traits like sex, gender, gender identity, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, culture, skin tone, beauty, height, weight, occupation, wealth, education, criminal record, sports team allegiance, fandom, music preferences, enthusiasm, or other characteristics.

Historical approaches

The term can also mean baseless or stereotyped beliefs, and it may refer to any unreasonable attitude that strongly resists rational argument. Gordon Allport called prejudice a feeling—positive or negative—toward a person or thing that comes before, or without, actual experience. Auestad (2015) described it as involving a "symbolic transfer": attaching value-laden meaning to a socially constructed category, then applying that meaning to individuals seen as part of that category, along with resistance to change and overgeneralization.

The American Psychological Association notes that the Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures hidden or unconscious negative attitudes toward people. It gauges how likely someone is to unconsciously discriminate against a particular group. In 2023 alone, over 40 million IATs were completed on the Project Implicit website, making it the most comprehensive tool for assessing hidden biases. The United Nations Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility has pointed to research that frames prejudice as a global security threat, since it can be used to scapegoat populations and incite violence against them, endangering individuals, nations, and the international community.

Etymology

The word "prejudice" has been in use since Middle English around 1300. It comes from the Old French préjudice, which derives from Latin praeiūdicium, formed from prae (before) and iūdicium (judgment). The French term meant prejudgment or damage, while the Latin had several meanings: prior judgment, judicial examination before trial, or harm. In Latin, prae means "pre" and iudicium means "judgment."

The first psychological research on prejudice appeared in the 1920s, aiming to support white supremacy. A 1925 review of 73 studies on race concluded they seemed to show "the mental superiority of the white race." Such studies led many psychologists to see prejudice as a natural response to races they considered inferior.

By the 1930s and 1940s, this view shifted due to rising concern about anti-Semitism tied to Nazi ideology. Theorists then saw prejudice as pathological and searched for personality syndromes linked to racism. Theodor Adorno believed prejudice came from an authoritarian personality—people who were rigid thinkers, obeyed authority, saw the world in black and white, and enforced strict social rules and hierarchies.

In 1954, Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice linked prejudice to categorical thinking. He argued that prejudice is a natural, normal human process: "The human mind must think with the aid of categories... Once formed, categories are the basis for normal prejudgment. We cannot possibly avoid this process.

Orderly living depends upon it." He stressed the contact hypothesis, which says that contact between different ethnic groups can reduce prejudice, but only under the right conditions. In the 1970s, research showed that prejudice often stems from favoring one’s own group rather than disliking others. Marilyn Brewer suggested that prejudice may develop not because outgroups are hated, but because positive feelings like admiration, sympathy, and trust are reserved for the ingroup.

In 1979, Thomas Pettigrew described the ultimate attribution error: ingroup members attribute negative outgroup behavior to internal causes more than they would for similar ingroup behavior, and they attribute positive outgroup behavior to flukes, luck, special advantages, high effort, or situational factors. Young-Bruehl (1996) argued that prejudice should not be treated as a single phenomenon; different prejudices relate to different character types. She saw prejudices as social defenses, distinguishing between an obsessional character linked to anti-Semitism, a hysterical character linked to racism, and a narcissistic character linked to sexism.

Contemporary theories and empirical findings

The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception that out-group members are more alike than in-group members. Social psychologists Quattrone and Jones demonstrated this in a study using students from rival schools.