Social psychologists dropped accuracy from definitions of prejudice, keeping only negative attitude

Evidence

Although antipathy became an enduring (if problematic) fixture of definitions of prejudice subsequent to Allport’s book, many theorists dropped the requirement that the beliefs about target groups are necessarily inaccurate, paralleling the removal of inaccuracy from most definitions of stereotype (see Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981). The resulting minimalist definition of prejudice as an overall negative attitude toward a group then became widely accepted in social psychology (e.g., Esses, Haddock, & Zanna, 1993). Removal of the accuracy criterion from the definition of prejudice opened the way to a more sophisticated analysis of accuracy and inaccuracy in stereotyping and prejudice (Judd & Park, ch. 8 this volume). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 178

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents how the field’s operative definition of prejudice shifted from ‘inaccurate negative attitude’ to just ‘negative attitude’.