Fictitious Groups and the Generality of Prejudice: An Artifact of Scales without Neutral Categories

Abstract

Generality of prejudice of real groups (ethnic and ideological) to fictitious groups was dramatically reduced to about chance level when college Ss were allowed the response alternative of neutrality, which was strongly their dominant response. When attitude scales had no neutral category, as in past research, then generality of prejudice-tolerance to nonexistent groups occurred. This is an artifact of the use of nonneutral scales. There were more significant correlations between judgments of the real groups when judged on the neutral point semantic differential scale than when measured on the nonneutral semantic differential.

TARGET ARTICLE: Attributions of Implicit Prejudice, or "Would Jesse Jackson 'Fail' the Implicit Association Test?"

“…We wholeheartedly agree. A person who simultaneously manifests a negative attitude toward a large number of groups including Arabs, conservatives, Americans, Canadians, political moderates, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and even nonexistent people known as Meblus (Fink, 1971) is likely to be prejudiced, and nothing in our article should be construed as a denial of the existence of prejudice. Our point is that if a person exhibits quicker RT to prison and jail when the response to such words occurs on the same response key as African-American names as opposed to White names, the person doing so is not necessarily implicitly prejudiced.…”

The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: Testing a dual process model.

“…Persons who are unfavorably disposed to one particular out-group or minority tend to be less favorable to others. This effect is typically powerful, with effect sizes averaging around .50 (Adorno et al, 1950; Bierly, 1985; Duckitt, 1992), and pervasive, holding across very different out-groups and even for totally fictitious out-groups (Fink, 1971; Hartley, 1946).…”