Envious prejudice exaggerates a target group’s power rather than disparaging its competence.

Evidence

Allport identified the Jews as history’s most frequently scapegoated group. In retrospect, his historical analysis of European anti-Semitism (from the Jews’ special theological position as the Bible’s “chosen people” to their professional success in pre-Nazi Germany) is consistent with the notion of envious prejudice. The nineteenth-century anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (which purports to describe a meeting of a Jewish group bent on world domination), perfectly illustrates the character of envious prejudice. Far from being disparaged as inept, the Jews’ power and abilities are exaggerated to a hysterical degree. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1587

Allport identified the Jews as history’s most frequently scapegoated group. In retrospect, his historical analysis of European anti-Semitism (from the Jews’ special theological position as the Bible’s “chosen people” to their professional success in pre-Nazi Germany) is consistent with the notion of envious prejudice. The nineteenth-century anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (which purports to describe a meeting of a Jewish group bent on world domination), perfectly illustrates the character of envious prejudice. Far from being disparaged as inept, the Jews’ power and abilities are exaggerated to a hysterical degree. Currently, difficult life circumstances in the Muslim world combined with Israel’s military might, close alliance with the United States, and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza have reinvigorated these anti-Semitic canards. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1587

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines envious prejudice precisely: it exaggerates the target’s power and abilities ‘to a hysterical degree’ rather than dismissing them as inept.
• XREF: Connects to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ and ‘On Sacrifice’ articles only loosely — but more relevantly to general scapegoating literature and to the concept of ‘We’ vs outgroup, overlapping with Zamyatin’s ‘We’. — connects to: Envied outgroups provoke prejudice precisely because competence implies control over competitive threat. — Susan T. Fiske et al., A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype…, 258; Paternalistic prejudice combines assumed superiority with caretaking toward warm but incompetent groups. — Susan T. Fiske et al., A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype…, 257
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what distinguishes envious prejudice treatments of Jews vs. despised-not-feared outgroups — when does each mode trigger?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1587; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1587