Dynamics of prejudice

de Bruno Bettelheim · Publicada por primera vez en 1950

In April-June 1946 a survey, ordered by the American Jewish Committee, was conducted among 150 World War II rank-and-file veterans, all of them male, white and non-Jewish, residing in Chicago. The survey aimed to examine the connection between the veterans' wartime experiences, postwar situation, and personality traits, on the one hand, and ethnic prejudices, primarily antisemitism (but also prejudices against Blacks and other minorities), on the other. The data suggest that ethnic intolerance is more a function of subjective perceptions than of the objective situation. Emphasizes principal factors which can explain the intolerance manifested by the veterans, such as subjective deprivation and downward social mobility, as well as somewhat lesser factors such as anxiety and the absence of adequate control of hostile discharge against ethnic minorities.