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Theories of Prejudice Social scientists have developed several theories to explain prejudice. Let’s first look at psychological explanations, then at sociological ones.

Psychological Perspectives Frustration and Scapegoats. In 1939, psychologist John Dollard suggested that preju- dice is the result of frustration. People who are unable to strike out at the real source of their frustration (such as debt and unemployment) look for someone to blame. They un- fairly blame their troubles on a scapegoat—often a racial–ethnic or religious minority— and this person or group becomes a target on which they vent their frustrations. Gender and age are also common targets of scapegoating.

Even mild frustration can increase prejudice. A team of psychologists led by Emory Cowen (1959) measured the prejudice of a group of students. They then gave the students two puzzles to solve, making sure the students did not have enough time to solve them. After the students had worked furiously on the puzzles, the experimenters shook their heads in disgust and said that they couldn’t believe the students hadn’t finished such a sim- ple task. They then retested the students and found that their scores on prejudice had in- creased. The students had directed their frustrations outward, transferring them to people who had nothing to do with the contempt the experimenters had shown them.

The Authoritarian Personality. Have you ever wondered whether personality is a cause of prejudice? Maybe some people are more inclined to be prejudiced, and others more fair- minded. For psychologist Theodor Adorno, who had fled from the Nazis, this was no idle speculation. With the horrors he had observed still fresh in his mind, Adorno won- dered whether there might be a certain type of person who is more likely to fall for the racist spewings of people like Hitler, Mussolini, and those in the Ku Klux Klan.

To find out, Adorno (Adorno et al. 1950) tested about two thousand people, ranging from college professors to prison inmates. To measure their ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism (bias against Jews), and support for strong, authoritarian leaders, he gave them three tests. Adorno found that people who scored high on one test also scored high on the other two. For example, people who agreed with anti-Semitic statements also said that governments should be authoritarian and that foreign ways of life pose a threat to the “American” way.

Adorno concluded that highly prejudiced people are insecure conformists. They have deep respect for authority and are submissive to authority figures. He termed this the authoritarian personality. These people believe that things are either right or wrong. Am- biguity disturbs them, especially in matters of religion or sex. They become anxious when they confront norms and values that are different from their own. To view people who dif- fer from themselves as inferior assures them that their own positions are right.

Adorno’s research stirred the scientific community, stimulating more than a thousand research studies. In general, the researchers found that people who are older, less edu- cated, less intelligent, and from a lower social class are more likely to be authoritarian. Crit- ics say that this doesn’t indicate a particular personality, just that the less educated are more prejudiced—which we already knew (Yinger 1965; Ray 1991). Nevertheless, re- searchers continue to study this concept (Nicol 2007).

Sociological Perspectives Sociologists find psychological explanations inadequate. They stress that the key to un- derstanding prejudice cannot be found by looking inside people, but, rather, by examin- ing conditions outside them. For this reason, sociologists focus on how social environments influence prejudice. With this background, let’s compare functionalist, conflict, and sym- bolic interactionist perspectives on prejudice.

Functionalism. In a telling scene from a television documentary, journalist Bill Moyers interviewed Fritz Hippler, a Nazi intellectual who at age 29 was put in charge of the en- tire German film industry. Hippler said that when Hitler came to power the Germans were

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scapegoat an individual or group unfairly blamed for someone else’s troubles

authoritarian personality Theodor Adorno’s term for people who are prejudiced and rank high on scales of con- formity, intolerance, insecurity, respect for authority, and sub- missiveness to superiors