Allport’s antipathy-based definition blinded the field to benevolent and paternalistic forms of bias

Evidence

Allport’s most fundamental blindspot concerns his definition of prejudice as “an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization” (p. 9). Chapters by Eagly and Diekman, Jackman, and Rudman in the current volume explore how this definition has obscured important aspects of prejudice, both pragmatically and theoretically. Allport’s emphasis on antipathy directed the field toward types of prejudice that produce exclusion and violence, but it distracted the field from other types of bias involving more subtle types of control and exploitation (e.g., affectionate paternalism). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Directly enriches the vault’s prejudice-psychology claims: challenges the assumption that prejudice is hostility, echoing later ambivalent-sexism and benevolent-prejudice research. Also touches the Reading Goal framing. — connects to: Modern antiblack bias stems from perceived value violations, not biological inferiority claims — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup…, 32
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does benevolent/affectionate paternalism violate Allport’s faulty-generalization criterion the same way antipathy does, or does it disqualify as ‘prejudice’ under his own terms?
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely reorienting claim about the definitional basis of an entire field — redefines what counts as prejudiced bias at all.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 138