Local subgroup norms, not national culture, sustain prejudice in the US

Evidence

One implication of dynamic social-impact theory for conformity and prejudice is that different groups in a society will have different patterns of prejudices. It would be a mistake to suggest that, for example, US culture has a strong norm against having prejudices based on race and religion. Some groups in the US have powerful norms suppressing these kinds of prejudices, and others do not (Ezekiel, 1996). Different social groups, living in different places, will have a stable set of prejudices and beliefs (that may conflict with the dominant social view in society), and people in contact with a subgroup will conform to the norms close around them, rather than the general norms that describe American values. Thus, for example, extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan or other white-pride groups, Black separatist groups, and secessionist movements persist in the US, despite their deviation from the culture-at-large. Different subgroups have their own prejudices, and people who are part of the local culture will share the local culture’s values. By limiting their contact with the rest of the culture, the prejudices of extremist groups can persist and even flourish (Myers & Bishop, 1970). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1911

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges any blanket claim that anti-prejudice norms characterize US culture; relevant to vault notes on moral panics and norm enforcement. — connects to: Local status within subcultures cannot substitute for global status in wider society — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 101
• QUESTION: Implication for contact theory: does cross-group contact between subgroups with entrenched local norms fail where national norms would have supplanted them?