No single theory alone explains prejudice’s full nature
Evidence
The Nature of Prejudice does not offer – nor does it pretend to offer – a grand theory of prejudice. Allport repeatedly made the point that prejudice is a multidetermined phenomenon that can be analyzed at many different levels (e.g., historical, cultural, situational, and individual). Furthermore, he made clear, at any one of those levels, no one variable or process can totally account for the existence or intensity of prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2339 (
#expands, via linked claim)
It is also apparent from years of research that many factors play an important role in the propagation of prejudiced beliefs and behavior. It should be clear, then, that no single theory can carry the burden of explaining and understanding the nature of racism and ethnocentrism. An integrative theoretical framework supported by empirical evidence is crucial for research on the nature of intergroup relations to progress. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1277 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
The social psychology of prejudice was one of the great academic success stories of the second half of the twentieth century and it continues to inform the dominant enlightenment model of how to combat popular racism through public education programs. But in its rush to arrive at a normative solution prejudice theory destroyed the delicate dialectic between the structure of fantasy, the object which it invests with unconscious significance, and the pattern of habitual association encoded in particular kinds of social discourse. Within its truncated conversation between the social and the psychic, the principles of overdetermination at work in racial formations of power and identity became literally unthinkable. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1320 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Society’s creed and norms explain prejudice better than any single theory — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 721; Prejudice is multidetermined with no single variable explaining it — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2339; Prejudice research cannot be reduced to individual psychology — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 737 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Prejudice is multidetermined with no single variable explaining it
#expands(0.95) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2339 - No single theory can fully explain racism and ethnocentrism.
#corroborates(0.95) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1277 - Prejudice theory’s normative rush made structural racial overdetermination unthinkable
#complicates(0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1320