Social consensus, not just conformity, underlies most acquired prejudice

Evidence

Allport argued that conformity is the primary source of prejudice. We agree. However, he may have underestimated the power of social consensus as a basis for prejudice; most of people’s prejudices are acquired from the local social norms and the culture in which people live. In addition, the manipulation of social consensus and social norms has been shown to be a powerful means by which to reduce prejudice. There is still much to learn about how to wield this normative power for reducing prejudice. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1938

Categorization

• XREF: Directly updates Allport’s own conformity thesis that anchors this vault’s prejudice-psychology thread — an explicit ‘he underestimated’ amendment worth flagging.