Evidence
Bobocel et al. (1998) found that prejudice can be rationalized as a concern for justice. Opposition to preferential Affirmative Action programs (those that assign a larger weight to demographic and give preference to target group members) was uniquely predicted by an individual’s belief in merit principles. That is, regardless of prejudice level, individuals tend to oppose preferential treatment programs because they violate traditional norms of meritocracy. However, the higher an individual’s level of prejudice, the more likely he was to construe an undefined Affirmative Action program (e. g. not necessarily preferential) as violating the merit principle and, in turn, oppose the undefined Affirmative Action program. These high-prejudice individuals were able to rationalize their prejudice as a concern for justice, although no traditional justice norms had been explicitly violated. In this way, symbolic racism functions through rationalization as a concern for traditional norms without conscious awareness.
Read more about this topic: Symbolic Racism
Famous quotes containing the word evidence:
“Faith. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“No further evidence is needed to show that “mental illness” is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)