WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL CAUSES

OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION?

In addition to the role that negative stereotypes play in both the causes and effects
of prejudice and discrimination, powerful social variables also exert a sigiificant
influence in the creation of intergroup intolerance. In this section of the chapter we
will examine some of these social causes.

PREJUDICE CAN DEVELOP AS A WAY

TO JUSTIFY OPPRESSION
Power is a necessary condition for effective
discrimination. In laboratory experi-
ments, when groups are given different
amounts of social power, members of high
power groups discriminate more against outgroups than members
Social Dominance Theor of low power
groups (Sachdev & Bourhis, 1987,1991).Social dominance theory
proposes that in
A theory contending that societal all societies, groups can be organized in a hierarchy of
power with at least one
groups can be organized in a group being dominant over all others (Pratto, 1996;Sidanius, 1993).
power hierarchy in which the groups enjoy a lopsided share of the society's assets, such
Dominant
as wealth, prestige,
Ominant groups enjoya education, and health. In contrast, subordinate groups receive most
of the society's
disproprtionate share of the liabilities, such as poverty, social stigma, illiteracy, poor health, and high
levels of
sæiety's assets and the subordinate criminal punishment. What history teaches us is that the negative
stereotypes and
groups ræeive most of its liabilities. prejudicial attitudes that dominant groups develop about those they
to justify their continued oppression (Sidanius et al.,
oppress serve
1996).
A good deal of the history of the United States rests on prejudice
he whites told only one side. Told social dominance.Europeanswho founded this country did not based on
it to please themselves. Told much arrive on unin-
habited shores in the "New World." These settlers used their
that is not true. Only his own best superior weapons to
dominate and conquer the indigenous people of North America.
At
deeds, only the worst deeds of the that Europeans were colonizingNorth America, they were also the same time
Indians, has the white man told. buying Africans and transporting them to the colonie as slaves.
capturing and
They justified the
Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perce Indians, inhuman exploitation that took place by stigmatizing both Native
Africans as inferior races who needed civilizing.
Americans and
1940
A number of experimental studies have demonstrated that
developing prej-
udicial and dehumanizingattitudes toward the victims of one's own
actions is a common response (Glass, 1964).For example, Stephen harmful
Racism breeds racism in reverse. Worchel and
Virginia Mathie Andreoli (1978)found that when instructed to deliver
shocks to a man when he responded incorrectly on a learning task,
electric
,Mary Brave Bird, Sioux college students
were more likely to dehumanize him than were students who were
cotnmenbb% instructed
reward the man for correct answers. By dehumanizing and derogating their to
own
victims, exploiters can not only avoid thinking of themselves as villains,
but they
can also justify further exploitation.
Old American textbooks illustrate the racist attitudes generated from such
exploitation.For example, figure 7.3 is an excerpt from a popular high-school
geography book published in 1880devoted to the "Racesof Man" around the

234 Part 2 Evaluating Our Social World