Ethnocentric attitudes do not derive from experience with minority groups.
Evidence
We come now upon a very important fact: People who are antagonistic to Jews are likely also to be antagonistic to Negroes and to “Japs,” “Okies,” foreigners in general. “Of course,” one says at first, but there is no logical necessity in the fact. If the reputation of an ethnic group with a particular man were dependent on that man’s personal experience with members of the group it is not clear why a man who thinks ill of one minority would think ill of the others nor why a man who thinks well of one should think well of all. Because this is the case it seems likely that neither the behavior of minorities nor our acquaintance with a sample of that behavior is the critical determinant of our attitudes toward them. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 453
Categorization
- QUESTION: Implication: generalized prejudice must be explained by something other than contact—personality, structure, or ideology. Relevant given the reader’s Frankfurt volume where anti-Semitic attitudes were analyzed as serving psychological-economic functions independent of actual Jews.
- XREF: connects to: Cross-group prejudice correlation shows attitudes are not driven by intergroup contact