366 ChapteR 10 Behavior in Social and Cultural Context
Mexican, particularly the migrant workers whose
labor is needed in the United States but who are
perceived as costing Americans their jobs.
The oldest prejudice in the world may be
sexism, and it, too, serves to legitimize existing
roles and inequities in power. According to re-
search with 15,000 men and women in 19 nations,
hostile sexism, which reflects active dislike of wom-
en, is different from benevolent sexism, which puts
women on a pedestal. The latter type of sexism
is affectionate but patronizing, conveying the at-
titude that women are so good, kind, and moral
that they should stay at home, away from the
rough-and-tumble (and power and income) of
public life (Glick et al., 2000; Glick, 2006). Be-
cause benevolent sexism lacks a tone of hostil-
ity to women, it doesn’t seem like a prejudice to
many people, and many women find it alluring to
think they are better than men. But both forms of
sexism, whether someone thinks women are too
good for equality or not good enough, legitimize
discrimination against women (Christopher &
Wojda, 2008).
Perhaps you are thinking: “What about men?
There are plenty of prejudices against men, too—
that they are sexual predators, emotionally heart-
less, domineering, and arrogant.” In fact, according
to a 16-nation study of attitudes toward men, many
people do believe that men are aggressive and
predatory, and overall just not as warm and won-
derful as women (Glick et al., 2004). This attitude
seems hostile to men, the researchers found, but
it also reflects and supports gender inequality by
characterizing men as being designed for leader-
ship, dominance, and high-paying jobs.4
Cultural and national causes. Finally, prejudice
bonds people to their own ethnic or national
group and its ways; by disliking “them,” we feel
closer to our own group. That feeling, in turn,
justifies whatever we do to “them” to preserve
our customs and national policies, and this re-
action is especially likely to be aroused during
armed conflicts. Although many people assume
that prejudice causes war, the reverse is far more
often the case: War causes prejudice. When two
nations declare war, when one country decides to
invade another, or when a weak leader displaces
the country’s economic problems onto a minority
scapegoat, the citizenry’s prejudice against that
enemy or scapegoat will be inflamed. Of course,
sometimes anger at an enemy is justified, but war
usually turns legitimate anger into blind prejudice:
Those people are not only the enemy; they are
less than human and deserve to be exterminated
(Keen, 1986; Staub, 1999). That is why enemies
are so often described as vermin, rats, mad dogs,1
Psychological causes. Prejudice often serves to
ward off feelings of doubt, fear, and insecurity.
Around the world, people puff up their low self-
esteem or self-worth by disliking or hating groups
they see as inferior (Islam & Hewstone, 1993;
Stephan et al., 1994). Prejudice also allows people
to use the target group as a scapegoat to displace
anger and cope with feelings of powerlessness
(“Those people are the source of all my troubles”).2
Social causes. Not all prejudices have deep-
seated psychological roots. Some are acquired
because of pressure to conform to the views of
friends, relatives, or associates. If you don’t agree
with your group’s prejudices, you may be gently
or abruptly asked to leave it. Some prejudices are
passed along mindlessly from one generation to
another, as when parents communicate to their
children, “We don’t associate with people like that.”3
economic causes. Prejudice makes official
forms of discrimination seem legitimate, by
justifying the majority group’s dominance, status,
competence, knowledge, or other grounds for
superiority. It doesn’t matter whether the major-
ity consists of whites, blacks, Muslims, Hindus,
Japanese, Christians, Jews, or any other cate-
gory. Wherever a majority group systematically
discriminates against a minority to preserve its
power, they will claim that their actions are legiti-
mate because the minority is so obviously inferior
and incompetent (Islam & Hewstone, 1993; Jost,
Nosek, & Gosling, 2008; Morton et al., 2009;
Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996).
You can see how prejudice rises with changing
economic conditions by observing what happens
when two groups are suddenly in direct competi-
tion for jobs, or when people are worried about
their incomes. Consider how white attitudes to-
ward Chinese immigrants in the United States fluc-
tuated during the nineteenth century, as reflected
in newspapers of the time (Aronson, 2012). When
the Chinese were working in the gold mines and
potentially taking jobs from white laborers, the
white-run newspapers described them as depraved,
vicious, and bloodthirsty. Just a decade later, when
the Chinese began working on the transcontinen-
tal railroad, doing difficult and dangerous jobs that
few white men wanted, prejudice against them
declined. Whites described them as hardworking,
industrious, and law-abiding. Then, after the rail-
road was finished and the Chinese had to compete
with Civil War veterans for scarce jobs, white at-
titudes changed again. Whites now thought the
Chinese were “criminal,” “crafty,” “conniving,”
and “stupid.” (The newspapers did not report the
attitudes of the Chinese.) Today’s Chinese are