Allport’s legacy predicts cognition and motivation will keep merging in prejudice research

Evidence

Half a century ago, the path opened by Allport in his groundbreaking work made clear that the boundaries of people’s cognitive apparatus and the restrictions imposed by self-interest likely join together to shape social judgment. For the many travelers that embraced social cognition, the journey has been every bit as fascinating as Allport advertised it to be. Our intuition of what future research holds similarly stresses the interplay of reality constraints and integrity concerns in the perception of groups and group members. The promise is thus for even more integration of cognition and motivation, a perspective Allport would surely have liked. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1191