In pursuit of three theories: Authoritarianism, Relative Deprivation and Intergroup Contact
Professor Thomas Pettigrew (Research Professor of Social Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz)
Thursday, 07 May 2015, 12pm to 1pm
Lecture Theatre C, Experimental Psychology
Hosted by Professor Miles Hewstone
Throughout my career, I have pursued three theories related to intergroup prejudice – each with a different mentor. Each theory and its supporting research help us to understand prejudice and ways to ameliorate the problem. My talk summarizes some of the advances in these three areas during the past six decades. For authoritarianism, I will advocate removing political content from its measurement; linking it with threat and dismissive-avoidant attachment; and studying how authoritarians avoid intergroup contact. Increased work on relative deprivation made possible an extensive meta-analysis that shows the theory, when appropriately measured, has far broader effects that previously thought. Similarly with intergroup contact, increased research attention made possible a meta-analysis that established the pervasive effectiveness of intergroup contact to reduce prejudice under a wide range of conditions. I will close by demonstrating how the three theories relate to each other and contribute to our understanding of prejudice and its reduction.