Personal prejudices reflect prevailing social norms almost perfectly

Evidence

To the extent that conformity is normal, prejudice is too. Crandall et al. (2002) had college students indicate the prevailing social norms of the acceptability of prejudice toward 105 different social groups. Students agreed that some prejudices were acceptable (e.g., rapists, child molesters, drug dealers, thieves) and others (e.g., African Americans, blind people, Jews, Canadians) were not. A second group of college students’ ratings of how they, personally, felt about the same groups showed a near perfect relationship between the social norm ratings and people’s personal prejudices toward the 105 groups, r = 0.96. Thus, people’s reports of their own prejudices were an almost perfect reflection of norms designating which prejudices are appropriate or inappropriate. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1902

Crandall et al. (2002) had college students indicate the prevailing social norms of the acceptability of prejudice toward 105 different social groups. Students agreed that some prejudices were acceptable (e.g., rapists, child molesters, drug dealers, thieves) and others (e.g., African Americans, blind people, Jews, Canadians) were not. A second group of college students’ ratings of how they, personally, felt about the same groups showed a near perfect relationship between the social norm ratings and people’s personal prejudices toward the 105 groups, r = 0.96. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1902

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Cialdini’s descriptive vs. injunctive norms work and to Allport’s broader argument about social conformity driving prejudice. — connects to: Prejudiced people are normal because they are well adapted to their culture. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1834
• SHARE: The r=0.96 figure mapping personal prejudice onto social norms across 105 groups is a striking data point for anyone working on prejudice research.
• QUESTION: The correlation is between self-report and perceived norms — does this reflect genuine internalization or demand characteristics? Would implicit measures show the same fidelity?
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1902; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1902