Allport’s work is read as founding both cognitive and irrationalist theories of prejudice

Evidence

The flip side of this breadth, generosity, and intellectual dexterity is that Allport embraced seemingly contradictory views at different points in The Nature of Prejudice. Thus, he has been many things to many thinkers. For example, Allport is the founder of the cognitive approach to prejudice, which views stereotyping and categorization as normal and inevitable byproducts of how people think. Yet he also viewed prejudice as a fundamentally irrational hatred, born of ignorance and the ego-defensive maneuvers of people with weak personality structures. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 99

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the two camps — cognitive/normal vs. irrationalist/ego-defensive — both attributed to the same founder.