Generalized Prejudice: Lessons about social power, ideological conflict, and levels of abstraction

Abstract

Prejudices tend to come as a package deal; people who are more racist tend to also be more sexist, and so on. Documentations of such attitudinal patterns–generalised prejudice–have a rich history, but the theoretical understanding thereof has been lagging. In recent years, we have seen clear theoretical advancement in the understanding of this phenomenon. We discuss classic premises in this research along with newer research that challenges some of the most ingrained ideas about generalised prejudice. For instance, we discuss research challenging the notions that generalised prejudice is an “us” versus “them” phenomenon, as well as a product of conservative ideology. We further argue that prejudice generalisations need to be studied at different levels of abstraction. Finally, we propose integrative perspectives on generalised and target-specific prejudice, with greater emphasis on processes of generalisation, rather than static generalised prejudice factors.