Understanding the Roots of Prejudice and Racism: A Theoretical Framework

This chapter presents a dynamic multidimensional model for the study of prejudice and racism by integrating frameworks from various disciplines. Psychologists often seek the origins of prejudice within individuals. Evolutionary psychologists posit that human evolution instilled a survival instinct and a tendency to view novelty as a threat. Neuroscientific and cognitive research indicates that the amygdala region of the brain activates upon encountering different individuals, triggering a “fight or flight” response and categorizing them into groups. This automatic categorization influences our reactions, leading to prejudice based on group affiliations such as race, ethnicity, gender, and religion. Personality research found that individuals with authoritarian and social dominance orientations are more inclined to believe in natural social hierarchies, segregating people into in-groups and out-groups and attributing negative traits and prejudices to the latter. According to social identity theory, individuals derive self-esteem from their in-groups and often view out-groups as threats, reinforcing negative prejudices against them. At the group level, dominant groups leverage their power to establish hierarchical structures, using ideologies and cultural narratives to justify unequal resource distribution and mistreatment of subordinated groups. Media and other platforms are utilized to depict out-groups negatively and maintain dominance. Sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists study these macro-level structures, revealing how prejudice and racism are embedded in societal systems and institutions. A thorough understanding of prejudice and racism requires examining all these dimensions: inner structures of the human psyche (e.g., cognitive processing), external factors in an individual’s environment (e.g., social institutions, belief systems), and the conditions that shape social interactions among individuals and groups.