Only low-prejudice people feel guilt when their behavior falls short of their nonprejudiced ideals

Evidence

When actual responses were discrepant from people’s personal standards, Devine et al. (1991) found that low-prejudice people experienced compunction but high-prejudice people did not. Moreover, the greater the violation of nonprejudiced standards, the more guilt low-prejudice people reported. For low-prejudice people, then, the conflict between their should and would reactions threatens their nonprejudiced self-concepts and they hold themselves personally accountable for these failures. In tandem with considerable similar evidence (for a review, see Devine & Monteith, 1993), it appears that many people are embroiled in the arduous process of prejudice reduction. Further, in line with Allport’s prescient observations, the adoption and internalization of nonprejudiced standards is clearly only the first step in breaking the prejudice habit. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2106

Categorization

• XREF: Directly corroborates the prejudice-psychology thread on the internalization of nonprejudiced standards as distinct from behavioral conformity.