Both external reality constraints and internal integrity concerns shape social judgment.

Evidence

Allport stressed the role of meaning construction in social perceptions as well, noting that both cognitive and motivational factors determine people’s interpretation of the social environment. After Allport, cognitively oriented social psychologists long concentrated on the former aspects and compared people’s cognitive performance to so-called objective accounts of the surrounding world (Hamilton & Trolier, 1986). More recently, the role of motivation in social judgment has very much been rediscovered. Nowadays, most students of stereotyping and prejudice would agree that reality constraints (i.e., the light without) and integrity concerns (i.e., the light within) both shape social judgment (Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1992, 1994). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1147

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Allport’s ‘light within’ and ‘light without’ framing for why perception is neither purely external nor purely internal.