FOREWORD
Gordon Allport was a modest man. Yet in his reserved, even shy, manner, he was justly proud of The Nature of Prejudice. His honored place in psychology had been achieved years prior to his undertaking the writing of this volume; Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, published in 1937, had firmly established him as one of the world's leading personality theorists. But it was Allport's book on intergroup prejudice that most directly expressed his deepest concerns and values, that translated his more abstract work into concrete ideas for reform and social change.
Allport died in 1967 at the age of 70. Were he alive today, he would undoubtedly be especially pleased by this reissuance of The Nature of Prejudice on its twenty-fifth anniversary. And he would also be pleased at the judgments of the book's intellectual content now being rendered a generation later.
The table of contents you will soon inspect has in fact organized the scholarly study of the important concept of prejudice. The Nature of Prejudice delineated the area of study, set up its basic categories and problems, and cast it in a broad, eclectic framework that remains today. The book continues to be cited as the definitive theoretical statement of the field, and it remains unchallenged in social science as the book on prejudice.
Recent assessments emphasize this lasting value of the volume. Kenneth Clark's views are contained in the preceding Introduction. He is joined in his positive evaluation by two additional social psychologists, M. Brewster Smith and Elliot Aronson, in their recent reconsiderations of the book. Smith, President of the American Psychological Association, as Allport once was, writes in the Winter 1978 New York University Education Quarterly:
Allport's compendious book still invites reading and defies summary. What seemed wise and judicious in 1954 mostly still seems so today.... His pervasive fairmindedness, his democratic values, and his concern for evidence continues to set a model for humane, problem-focused social science.... [F]rom Allport, we can still get wise guidance in our attempts to give more human substance to our democratic aspirations.
Aronson, writing in the July 1978 issue of Human Nature, concurs:
Gordon Allport's book was both a harbinger and a reflection of the thinking that went into the Supreme Court decision [ Brown v. Board of Education, 1954]. The Nature of Prejudice is a remarkable mixture of careful scholarship and humane values. Allport marshalled an impressive array of data and organized these data clearly and passionately. The book has influenced an entire generation of social psychologists, and deservedly so. ... What is modern about the book is Allport's perspective; he carefully chose among existing theories and data to come up with a brilliant and accurate statement of the eclectic causes and possible cures of prejudice.... This is a tribute to the wisdom, scholarship, and judgment of a graceful mind. Allport avoided the twin pitfalls of championing one position to the exclusion of all others, or of giving each position equal status.
Allport realized that The Nature of Prejudice would require a revised edition because the specific examples he tellingly applies throughout the book would become dated. After all, the book and its author were products of their time. The problem of prejudice is largely cast in these pages as one of Protestant whites against the targets of traditional American discrimination— blacks, Jews, and Roman Catholics. The rapid, sweeping events of the last 25 years have broadened the perspective on prejudice, and two of Allport's students— Professor Bernard Kramer of the University of Massachusetts at Boston and I—have been hard at work incorporating these complex developments into a new edition of the book. The end is not in sight, though we hope to publish the revised edition in the next few years. We have found that it is not easy to rewrite a classic. But our problem is the reader's good fortune. That special quality which makes this book so difficult to revise is precisely what also makes it a rewarding experience to read as it was originally written. As a lasting paradigm for the study of prejudice and as a broad, accurate summary of what is known on the subject, The Nature of Prejudice is a landmark book and deserves your careful study.
Harvard University
THOMAS FRASER PETTIGREW
January 1979
PREFACE TO THE 1954 EDITION
Civilized men have gained notable mastery over energy, matter, and inanimate nature generally, and are rapidly learning to control physical suffering and premature death. But, by contrast, we appear to be living in the Stone Age so far as our handling of human relationships is concerned. Our deficit in social knowledge seems to void at every step our progress in physical knowledge. The surplus in wealth accumulating to the human race through applied natural science is virtually canceled by the costs of armaments and war. Gains in medical science are widely negated by the poverty that results from war and from trade barriers erected largely by hatred and fear.
At a time when the world as a whole suffers from panic induced by the rival ideologies of east and west, each corner of the earth has its own special burdens of animosity. Moslems distrust non‐ Moslems. Jews who escaped extermination in Central Europe find themselves in the new State of Israel surrounded by anti-Semitism. Refugees roam in inhospitable lands. Many of the colored people of the world suffer indignities at the hands of whites who invent a fanciful racist doctrine to justify their condescension. The checkerboard of prejudice in the United States is perhaps the most intricate of all. While some of this endless antagonism seems based upon a realistic conflict of interests, most of it, we suspect, is a product of the fears of the imagination. Yet imaginary fears can cause real suffering.
Rivalries and hatreds between groups are nothing new. What is new is the fact that technology has brought these groups too close together for comfort. Russia is no longer a distant land of the steppes; it is over here. The United States is no longer remote from the Old World; it is over there, with its Point IV, movies, Coca-Cola, and political influence. Nations once safely separated by barricades of water or mountains are exposed to each other by air. Radio, jets, television, paratroopers, international loans, post‐ war migrations, atomic blasts, moving pictures, tourism—all products of the modern age—have thrown human groups into each others' laps. We have not yet learned how to adjust to our new mental and moral proximity.
Yet the situation is not without its hopeful features. Chief among these is the simple fact that human nature seems, on the whole, to prefer the sight of kindness and friendliness to the sight of cruelty. Normal men everywhere reject, in principle and by preference, the path of war and destruction. They like to live in peace and friendship with their neighbors; they prefer to love and be loved rather than to hate and be hated. Cruelty is not a favored human trait. Even the top Nazi officials who were tried at Nürnberg pretended that they knew nothing about the inhuman practices in the concentration camps. They shrank from admitting their part because they too wished to be thought of as human beings. While wars rage, yet our desire is for peace, and while animosity prevails, the weight of mankind's approval is on the side of affiliation. So long as there is this sense of moral dilemma there is hope that it may somehow be resolved and that hate-free values may be brought to prevail.
Especially encouraging is the fact that in recent years men in large numbers have become convinced that scientific intelligence may help us solve the conflict. Theology has always viewed the clash between man's destructive nature and his ideals as a matter of original sin resisting the redemptive process. Valid and expressive as this diagnosis may be, there has been added recently the conviction that man can and should employ his intelligence to assist in his redemption. Men are saying, "Let us make an objective study of conflict in culture and industry, between people of different color and race; let us seek out the roots of prejudice and find concrete means for implementing men's affiliative values." Since the end of the Second World War universities in many lands have given new prominence to this approach under various academic names: social science, human development, social psychology, human relations, social relations. Though not yet securely christened, the infant science is thriving. It has found considerable welcome not only in universities, but likewise in public schools, in churches, in progressive industries and government agencies, as well as in international bodies.
Within the past decade or two there has been more solid and enlightening study in this area than in all previous centuries combined. To be sure, the ethical guidelines for human conduct were stated millennia ago in the great creedal systems of mankind—all of them establishing the need and rationale for brotherhood among the earth's inhabitants. But the creeds were formulated in the days of pastoral or nomadic living, in the time of shepherds and petty kingdoms. To implement them in a technical, atomic age requires an improved understanding of the factors making for hatred and tolerance. Science, it has been falsely assumed, should concern itself with material progress and leave human nature and social relation ships to an unguided moral sense. We now know that technical advance by itself creates more problems than it solves.
Social science cannot catch up overnight, nor swiftly repair the ravages of undirected technology. It required years of labor and billions of dollars to gain the secret of the atom. It will take a still greater investment to gain the secrets of man's irrational nature. It is easier, someone has said, to smash an atom than a prejudice. The subject of human relations is exceedingly broad. Work necessarily proceeds from a variety of starting points and is concerned with many areas of human association: family life, mental health, industrial relations, international negotiations, training for citizenship— to mention only a few.
The present volume does not pretend to deal with the science of human relations as a whole. It aims merely to clarify one underlying issue—the nature of human prejudice. But this issue is basic, for without knowledge of the roots of hostility we cannot hope to employ our intelligence effectively in controlling its destructiveness.
When we speak of prejudice we are likely to think of "race prejudice." This is an unfortunate association of ideas, for throughout history human prejudice has had little to do with race. The conception of race is recent, scarcely a century old. For the most part prejudice and persecution have rested on other grounds, often on religion. Until the recent past Jews have been persecuted chiefly for their religion, not for their race. Negroes were enslaved primarily because they were economic assets, but the rationale took a religious form: they were pagans by nature, the presumed descendants of Noah's son Ham, and cursed by Noah to be forever "the servants of servants." The concept of race so popular today is in reality an anachronism. Even if it were once applicable, it is scarcely so any longer, owing to the endless dilution of human stocks through cross-mating.
Why then did the race concept become so popular? For one thing, religion lost much of its zeal for proselytizing and therewith its value for designating group membership. Moreover, the simplicity of "race" gave an immediate and visible mark, so it was thought, by which to designate victims of dislike. And the fiction of racial inferiority became, so it seemed, an irrefutable justification for prejudice. It had the stamp of biological finality, and spared people the pains of examining the complex economic, cultural, political, and psychological conditions that enter into group relations.
For most purposes the term "ethnic" is preferable to the term "race." Ethnic refers to characteristics of groups that may be, in different proportions, physical, national, cultural, linguistic, religious, or ideological in character. Unlike "race," the term does not imply biological unity, a condition which in reality seldom marks the groups that are the targets of prejudice. It is true that "ethnic" does not easily cover occupational, class, caste, and political groupings, nor the two sexes—clusters that are also the victims of prejudice.
Unfortunately the lexicon of human groups is poor. Until social science offers an improved taxonomy we cannot speak with the precision we should like. It is possible, however, to avoid the error of referring to "race" when the term does not apply. It is, as Ashley‐ Montagu insists, a mischievous and retardative term in social science. We shall take pains to use it, when we do, in a properly limited manner. For groups marked by any form of cultural cohesion we shall employ "ethnic," but at times may be guilty of overextending the meaning of this already broad term.
It is a serious error to ascribe prejudice and discrimination to any single taproot, reaching into economic exploitation, social structure, the mores, fear, aggression, sex conflict, or any other favored soil. Prejudice and discrimination, as we shall see, may draw nourishment from all these conditions, and many others.
While plural causation is the primary lesson we wish to teach, the reader may reasonably ask whether the author himself does not betray a psychological bias. Does he do justice to the complex economic, cultural, historical, and situational factors involved? Is he not, by professional habit, disposed to emphasize the role of learning, of cognitive processes, and of personality formation?
It is true that I believe it is only within the nexus of personality that we find the effective operation of historical, cultural, and economic factors. Unless mores somehow enter the fibre of individual lives they are not effective agents, for it is only individuals who can feel antagonism and practice discrimination. Yet "causation" is a broad term, and we can (and should) acknowledge long-range sociocultural etiology as well as the immediate causation that lies in attitudes held by the individual. I have tried (especially in Chapter 13) to present a balanced view of the several levels of causation, even though I place a heavy and convergent emphasis upon psychological factors. If, in spite of my efforts, the result still seems one-sided, I rely on critics to point out the failing.
While the researches and illustrations of this volume are drawn chiefly from the United States, I believe that our analysis of the dynamics of prejudice has universal validity. To be sure, the ways in which prejudice is manifested vary considerably from country to country: the selected victims are not the same; attitudes toward physical contact with disparaged groups differ; accusations and stereotypes vary. Yet such evidence as we have from other countries indicates that the basic causes and correlates are essentially identical. Gardner Murphy reaches this conclusion on the basis of his investigation of group tensions in India. His book In the Minds of Men is pertinent in this connection. Likewise, other studies conducted by agencies of the United Nations support this view. And anthropological literature, whether devoted to the practices of witchcraft, clan loyalty, or to warfare, suggests that while the targets of prejudice and its expression differ greatly, the underlying dynamics are much the same in all lands. While this guiding assumption seems safe, we should not yet regard it as conclusive. Future cross‐ cultural research will certainly show that the weighting and patterning of causal factors vary greatly in different regions, and that perhaps additional important causes must be added to our present account.
In writing this book I have had in mind two groups of readers, both of which I know to be deeply interested in its subject matter. One group comprises college and university students in all countries who are increasingly concerned with the social and psychological foundations of human behavior, seeking scientific guidance in the improvement of group relations. The second group consists of the growing population of older citizens and general readers who are of the same mind, although their interests on the whole may be less theoretical and more immediately practical. With these two groups in mind I have written my exposition in a fairly elementary fashion. Inevitably I have simplified some of the points at issue, but not, I hope, to a point that is in any respect scientifically misleading.
So great is the ferment of investigation and theory in this area that in one sense our account will soon be dated. New experiments will supersede old, and formulations of various theories will be improved. Yet there is one feature of the book that I believe will be of lasting value, namely, its principle of organization. I have tried to offer a framework into which future developments may readily fit.
While my purpose is primarily to clarify the field as a whole, I have also tried, especially in Part VIII, to show how our growing knowledge can be applied to the reduction of group tensions. A few years ago a census conducted by the American Council on Race Relations discovered 1350 organizations in the United States devoted explicitly to the improvement of group relations. With what degree of success they are operating is itself a problem requiring scientific evaluation, and is considered in some detail in Chapter 30. It is fallacious to take exclusively an academic point of view without checking what we say against practical action. At the same time it is wasteful for practical people to invest time and money in remedial
PREFACE TO THE 1958 EDITION
Not long after this book was first printed the United States Supreme Court ruled, in May 1954, that segregation in the nation's public schools is unconstitutional. Its directive of May 1955 ordered that desegregation should be instituted "with all deliberate speed."
This historic action was greeted by world acclaim but displeased many elements in our own Deep South. At the present time at least seven states seem inconsolable and have declared massive resistance against the order. The 1957 crisis in Little Rock dramatized the federal-state deadlock. Domestic and international repercussions of this constitutional crisis cause us grave concern.
In the perspective of this volume I venture two comments on the situation. Chapters 16, 29, and 31 make clear that in this country an integrated racial situation (in employment, in the armed services, in schools) comes about most easily in response to a firmly enforced executive order. Experience shows that most citizens accept a forthright fait accompli with little protest or disorder. In part they do so because integrationist policies are usually in line with their own consciences (even though countering their prejudices). In part the swift change is accepted because opposing forces have no time to mobilize and launch a countermovement.
Following this line of reasoning, it probably would have been psychologically sounder for the Supreme Court to have insisted upon prompt acquiescence with its ruling of 1954. "Deliberate speed" does not fix an early and inescapable date for compliance. As subsequent events have shown, the delay has given time for the formation of Citizens' Councils, for the crusades of agitators, and, worst of all, for fierce disagreement to arise among authorities occupying strategic roles in the hierarchy of law enforcement (school boards, mayors, district courts, legislatures, state governors, and Washington officials). No firm and consistent course of action is agreed upon; leadership falters; counter‐ movements flourish. Whether or not it would have been possible, because of the sheer administrative complexity of the step, to achieve school integration throughout the South within a year or two after the original decision, we cannot say. But we can at least
