WHEN DOES THE SELF-REGULATION OF PREJUDICE APPLY? INTEGRATING MOTIVATION TO CONTROL PREJUDICE AND SOCIAL NORM THEORY

Previous research shows individuals with internal motivation to control prejudice engage in the successful self-regulation of prejudice due to egalitarian personal standards (Legault et al., 2007). The literature on Social Norm Theory, however, suggests prejudice suppression towards various outgroups reflects social norms prescribing and proscribing prejudice (Crandall, Eshleman, & O'brien, 2002). In the following thesis, we argue that outgroup protective status moderates the relationship between internal motivation and the self-regulation of prejudice. That is, internal motivation is not a generalized egalitarian worldview, but rather social norm dependent, and therefore, results in the initiation of self-regulatory processes only in the presence of normatively protected outgroups but not normatively nonprotected outgroups. Participants of high and low internal motivation were led to believe that their responses on items regarding either a normatively protected outgroup (i.e., Blacks or Jews) or normatively nonprotected outgroup (i.e., Arabs or Atheists) could be used as a measure of subtle prejudice. In addition, some participants received false feedback indicating high levels of prejudice, whereas other participants did not receive prejudice-related feedback. Although results did provide support for the role of social norms in the self-regulation of prejudice, the current research failed to show the self-regulation of prejudice is dependent on both internal motivation and social norms.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Core, Tammy J.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37430

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/37430