Taking any three psychological theories of prejudice: How adequately do these theories explain the causes of prejudice and what has each to suggest about the possibility of reducing prejudice?

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Taking any three psychological theories of prejudice: How adequately do these theories explain the causes of prejudice and what has each to suggest about the possibility of reducing prejudice?

The first experiment I would like to look at is Adorno et al (1950). In this experiment Adorno hypothesised that a child’s personality especially their level of prejudice came from the way in which they were raised by their parents. Adorno argued that if children were brought up in an authoritarian environment, where the children were not allowed to express themselves they would aim there anger towards other parties. Adorno calculated that the most likely targets or scapegoats for this pent up aggression would be weaker minority groups, and would use these minorities as an ego-defensive prop. He tested his, white, middle class, non-Jewish, American, male subjects on two scales, the F scale that measured people’s authoritarian and anti democratic personality traits and the PEC scale that measured peoples reluctance to social change. Adorno et al found that people who scored highly on the PEC scale usually scored highly on the F scale. Adorno concluded that this meant people who were raised in an authoritarian manner were more likely to be prejudiced.

If this experiment was correct an obvious way to reduce prejudice would be to ensure children were not brought up in strict environments, as this would allow them to vent their frustrations towards their parents and not towards scapegoats and minority groups in later life. However there are too many criticisms in Adorno’s experiment for this to be correct. There is no explanation why some people brought up in authoritarian households are not prejudice, also there is no explanation for why people brought up in non-authoritarian households can also be prejudice. Adorno used an extremely small cross section of people from non-ethnic, non-minority backgrounds. Methodologically his experiment was also debatable as agreement with a statement always indicated an authoritarian personality. Also with every survey type experiment, people will only answer the first few questions attentively, and it is just from the subjects opinions of how they would react to the statements, not observation of how they would react in real life situations. To completely rubbish Adorno’s experiment we can look at Pettigrew (1958), who found that scores on Adorno’s F and PEC scales were the same when tested on people in the north and the south of America, even though the people in the south of America at that time were highly prejudice towards black people.

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The second experiment I would like to look at is Sherif et al (1961). In this experiment twenty two, white, middle class, eleven and twelve year old boys were sent to a summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. Prior to arriving at the camp the boys were separated in to two groups of eleven. The two groups were given time away from each other in which they were given tasks, friendships within the groups quickly formed at this point each group unaware of the other groups existence. When the two groups became aware of each other, ...

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