Ethnocentric Personality : A 60-Year Old Myth?

• After World War II, researchers began searching for a prejudiced personality. This inquiry relied, and still relies, on interrelations between prejudice toward different targets (generalized prejudice) and correlations with ideology and personality variables. The conventional wisdom here became that some people are systematically more biased toward all outgroups (ethnocentrism). However, it is not conclusive that generalized prejudice reflect outgroup biases. For example, Gays and overweight people could be targeted by prejudice alike because they are minorities, not because they are outgroups. Based on three experiments employing the minimal group paradigm, this paper provides the first direct test of the ethnocentric personality assumption. We found that personality (Agreeableness & Openness to Experience) only accounted for a small share of the variance in ethnocentrism but, in line with previous research, a large share in generalized prejudice. We propose a re-evaluating the ethnocentric personality notion and a distinction between ethnocentrism and generalized prejudice.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Ethnocentrism

generalized prejudice

personality

agreeableness

openness to experience

Psychology

Psykologi

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

art (subject category)