Perspective and Prejudice: Antecedents and Mediating Mechanisms

• Published in: Personality & social psychology bulletin Vol. 30; no. 12; pp. 1537 - 1549
• Main Authors: Dovidio, John F., ten Vergert, Marleen, Stewart, Tracie L., Gaertner, Samuel L., Johnson, James D., Esses, Victoria M., Riek, Blake M., Pearson, Adam R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01-12-2004; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; African Americans; African Continental Ancestry Group; Black American people; Black White Relations; Cognition; Emotions; Empathy; European Continental Ancestry Group; Female; Group Identity; Humans; Male; Perceptions; Prejudice; Prevention; Preventive programmes; Racial prejudice; Racism; Social identity; Social Inequality; Social Justice; USA; White people; empathy; social categorization; racism; social identity; perspective taking; prejudice reduction
• ISSN: 0146-1672; 1552-7433
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167204271177

The present work investigated mechanisms by which Whites’ prejudice toward Blacks can be reduced (Study 1) and explored how creating a common ingroup identity can reduce prejudice by promoting these processes (Study 2). In Study 1, White participants who viewed a videotape depicting examples of racial discrimination and who imagined the victim’s feelings showed greater decreases in prejudice toward Blacks than did those in the objective and no instruction conditions. Among the potential mediating affective and cognitive variables examined, reductions in prejudice were mediated primarily by feelings associated with perceived injustice. In Study 2, an intervention designed to increase perceptions of a common group identity before viewing the videotape, reading that a terrorist threat was directed at all Americans versus directed just at White Americans, also reduced prejudice towardBlacks through increases in feelings of injustice.