Psychoanalytic ego-defense accounts of stereotyping failed empirically

Evidence

The notion that stereotypes serve ego-justification functions continued to influence researchers adopting a “functional approach,” especially those influenced by psychoanalytic perspectives on stereotyping and prejudice (e.g. Adorno et al., 1950; Bettelheim & Janowitz, 1964; Katz, 1960; Myrdal, 1944; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956). Following Freud (1946), these writers proposed that stereotyping served as a “defense mechanism” whereby internal conflicts were projected onto societal scapegoats. Although many such accounts reconciled the Freudian view with sociological approaches (e.g. Adorno et al., 1950), the ego-defensive hypothesis with respect to stereotyping was criticized for its “far-reaching lack of interest in the influence of the social environment on the individual” (Bettelheim & Janowitz, 1964, p. 50). The function of egojustification, however alluring, failed to produce satisfactory empirical evidence and was rejected along with social psychology’s rejection of psychoanalysis more generally (see Sherif & Cantril, 1947) even before modern alternatives to conceptualizing attitude and stereotype function became available. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2883

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to Adorno’s authoritarian personality and the broader history of psychoanalysis in social psychology. — connects to: Early-century concepts like cathexis and ego defense anticipated implicit attitudes — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 270