The Psychology of Bigotry 515to agree with anti-Black statements from a separate “Anti-
Black scale.” Moreover, for White American respondents,
these racial beliefs relate to different and conflicting value
systems. Pro-Black attitudes (e.g., beliefs that Blacks have a
disadvantaged position in society) are linked to humanitar-
ian-egalitarian values. By contrast, anti-Black attitudes (e.g.,
beliefs that Black people lack the drive or skills necessary to
improve their socioeconomic position) related to White re-
spondents’ beliefs in individualism and the Protestant ethic.
Katz and his colleagues proposed that when these con-
flicting beliefs are salient to a White person holding them and
who also becomes aware of the ambivalence, he or she expe-
riences negative arousal and is motivated to reduce this ten-
sion. Indeed, Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey, and Moore (1992)
have demonstrated that White American participants experi-
enced negative mood change when their racial ambivalence
toward Black people was stimulated by reading a vivid
description of an ugly racial incident in which gangs of
young Whites in New York City viciously beat some Black
Americans whose car had broken down in their neighbor-
hood. This discomfort can be reduced, according to these
theorists, by intensifying either the positive or negative com-
ponent of the conflicted attitude toward Blacks—an idea
definingresponse amplification theory.
Response amplification theory suggests that for ambiva-
lent White Americans attitudes and behavior will be more
polarized or amplified toward Black Americans than toward
fellow White Americans. Experimental evidence for re-
sponse amplification theory, as applied to Black Americans
and other socially stigmatized groups such as the handi-
capped, was presented by Katz and Glass (1979). For exam-
ple, White U.S. undergraduates who had been led to believe
that they had delivered a series of strong shocks to a victim
derogated a Black victim more than a White victim, and this
derogation was a function of the extent of ambivalence as
reflected by measures of prejudice and sympathy toward
Blacks. Whether racial ambivalence potentiates positive or
negative responses depends on the situational context and the
ambivalent person’s behavioral options.
Ambivalent Sexism
Sexism, like racism, reflects ambivalence. Glick and Fiske
(1996) viewed sexism as a multidimensional construct in-
volving ambivalence. They proposed that ambivalent sexism
comprises two positively correlated components: hostile sex-
ism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS). The former consists of
hostility, negative attitudes, and negative stereotypes of
women. By contrast, BS is a set of interrelated sexist attitudes
that portray women stereotypically and in restricted roles but
that are subjectively positive in affective tone from the per-
ceiver’s viewpoint and elicit prosocial behaviors (e.g., help-
ing) or intimacy seeking (e.g., self-disclosure). Benevolent
sexism reflects a positive attitude toward women and positive
stereotypes about women, although Glick and Fiske do not
view it as a good thing. Although both HS and BS were orig-
inally postulated to include three underlying components,
this conjecture was supported only for BS, while HS was
found to be a unidimensional construct.
Both HS and BS relate, as one would expect, to other mea-
sures of modern sexism (Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995)
and neo-sexism (Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly, 1995).
Benevolent sexism, however, relates to subtler forms of sex-
ism than HS, masked as it is in a veil of positive sentiment
toward women. Glick and Fiske (1996) suggested that among
women, BS reflects a tendency to adopt as one’s own the
prevalent forms of sexist prejudice in U.S. society. They also
suggested that while modern- and neo-sexism measures
excel in predicting gender-related political attitudes, HS
and BS scales together (comprising the Ambivalent Sexism
Inventory, or ASI) would be better at predicting attitudes
and behavior in the realm of interpersonal and romantic
relationships between women and men. As well, sexist
ambivalence—the combination of scoring high on both BS
and HS—is believed to polarize attitudes and behaviors to-
ward women, in a process like that proposed by Katz, Haas,
and their colleagues for amplified responses toward Black
Americans and the physically handicapped as induced by
ambivalence.Blatant and Subtle PrejudiceThe preceding ambivalence approaches differ in whether
they assume that old-fashioned prejudice still exists or
whether it is seen to be as potent as its modern or symbolic
variants. For example, advocates of symbolic and modern
racism suggest that it is the more dominant form of prejudice
today. Other ambivalence approaches assume that both forms
are prevalent and require assessment by researchers inter-
ested in prejudice. For example, Pettigrew and Meertens
(1995) postulated the existence of both blatant and subtle
prejudice toward out-groups today. They characterized bla-
tant prejudice (the traditional form) as “hot, close, and direct”
and suggested that it consisted of two components: (a) per-
ceived threat and rejection of the out-group and (b) avoidance
of intimacy (especially sex and marriage). By contrast, subtle
prejudice (the modern variant) is “cool, distant, and indirect”
and includes three components: (a) defense of traditional
values, (b) exaggeration of cultural differences, and (c) denial
of positive emotional responses toward out-groups.