Personality attribution style determines whether victims externalize or internalize prejudice.

Evidence

In particular, he emphasized targets’ personality as the driving force behind reactions to prejudice in his suggestion that extropunitive and intropunitive people would respond to prejudice differently. He hypothesized that people who tend to be “extropunitive” (i.e., who characteristically attribute the cause of personal events to things outside of themselves) will likely adopt outwardly focused defenses (e.g., aggression against the outgroup), whereas people who characteristically tend to be “intropunitive” (i.e., who attribute responsibility for events to themselves) will likely adopt inwardly focused defenses (e.g., denial of membership, self-hate, and ingroup aggression). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 929 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In his view, prejudice inevitably, inescapably, and irrevocably alters the personality of its victims. This perspective predicts considerable cross-situational consistency in behavior. In contrast, most contemporary scholars adopt a more social-psychological, or situational, perspective. These scholars propose that stigma exposes its bearers to situational threats, i.e., situations where one’s membership in a particular stigmatized group could influence how one is treated and judged (see Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). No internalization of stigmatizing stereotypes is assumed to be necessary for prejudice to influence the person’s experience and behavior. Thus, quite different responses may be observed within the same individual as the context changes (Steele et al., 2002). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 937 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Allport predicted victims’ response style depends on their attribution tendencies; Prejudice targets cope either by externalizing or internalizing blame; Blame attribution styles shape how targets of prejudice cope psychically (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Prejudice victims’ personality orientation predicts whether their defenses are outward or inward #corroborates (0.95) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 929
• Prejudice shapes behavior through situational context rather than requiring internalization #complicates (0.78)
• Prejudice’s effect on targets is situation-dependent rather than personality-altering #complicates (0.75) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 937
• Predicting individual prejudice responses depends on situational and stigma characteristics #complicates (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 973