Psychodynamic prejudice theories cannot explain consensual stereotypes like specific group characterizations

Evidence

Not surprisingly, these theories could more easily account for generalized prejudices than the specific consensual stereotypes associated with those prejudices (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981). To be more concrete: It is one thing to imagine that a number of individuals who were subjected to harsh parenting might respond by repressing hostile thoughts and feelings that are difficult to bottle up, but it is another to explain how this will result in collective agreement that Jews are dishonest and stingy, Blacks are hostile and lazy, and gay people are weak and immoral. … But how do all of those Georges reach those agreements? — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2362

Stereotypes about outgroups are not simply formed in the minds of individual people; the construction of a specific stereotype involves interpersonal, not just intrapsychic, processes (Schaller & Conway, 1999). Allport (1954/1979) himself stated that “Prejudice is a social fact, and seems to require a social context” (p. 344). Most thinking on the topic of defensive projection, however (including the Newman et al. model), has focused exclusively on the individual. For example, according to classic psychodynamic approaches, prejudice in a given society arises when many different people individually have experiences (e.g., punitive parenting; Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950) that motivate derogation of other groups. Not surprisingly, these theories could more easily account for generalized prejudices than the specific consensual stereotypes associated with those prejudices (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981). To be more concrete: It is one thing to imagine that a number of individuals who were subjected to harsh parenting might respond by repressing hostile thoughts and feelings that are difficult to bottle up, but it is another to explain how this will result in collective agreement that Jews are dishonest and stingy, Blacks are hostile and lazy, and gay people are weak and immoral. … But how do all of those Georges reach those agreements? — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2362

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The gap between individual mechanisms (harsh parenting, projection) and collective agreement on specific stereotype content (Jews are stingy, Blacks are lazy) is a genuinely foundational puzzle for any account of prejudice.
• SEED: An article angle: why psychodynamic accounts of prejudice explain generalized hostility but cannot explain why specific groups get specific trait assignments rather than any trait at all.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2362; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2362
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them”