Targets of prejudice balance self-protection and self-enhancement motives

Evidence

What Allport roughly sketched is a two-factor model of targets’ responses to prejudice. One recurring response is self-protective, as it protects a person from the most negative effects of discrimination, oppression, and disadvantage. The second, which social scientists have spent far less time thinking about, can be considered self-enhancement, the mechanisms by which one maintains a positive outlook and a wholesome pursuit of wellbeing and human dignity. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1058

What Allport roughly sketched is a two-factor model of targets’ responses to prejudice. One recurring response is self-protective, as it protects a person from the most negative effects of discrimination, oppression, and disadvantage. The second, which social scientists have spent far less time thinking about, can be considered self-enhancement, the mechanisms by which one maintains a positive outlook and a wholesome pursuit of wellbeing and human dignity. I have labeled the disparaging and threatening circumstances of prejudice the “universal context of racism.” The universal context of racism implies the continuous “availability” of patterns of discrimination and disadvantage that become chronically accessible as explanatory constructs for personal experience. Consistent with Allport, this model proposes that both self-protective and self-enhancement motives arise in response to the universal context of racism (see Jones, 2003). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1058

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the two-factor model (self-protective vs. self-enhancement) and the ‘universal context of racism’ concept.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1058; , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1058