Abstract
Early literature found that holding more anti-Semitic attitudes positively predicted ability to discern whether a photograph was of a Jewish or non-Jewish person. This contradicts the well established finding that interpersonal sensitivity is generally associated with healthy psychological characteristics. In five new, previously unpublished studies we found that this relation was negative, such that more prejudiced individuals were now less accurate than less prejudiced individuals at a similar task, consistent with the general finding. A meta-analysis of all the studies showed that time was a significant moderator of the relation. Possible reasons for the temporal change are discussed.
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Notes
While all of the new studies specifically measured anti-Semitic attitudes, some of the earlier studies utilized prejudice measures that combined anti-Semitism with other prejudicial attitudes. Allport and Kramer (1946), Elliott and Wittenberg (1955), and Lindzey and Rogolsky (1950) specifically looked at anti-Semitism while Himmelfarb (1966) and Dorfman et al. (1971) looked at a combination of prejudice toward Jews, African-Americans, and Catholics. Scodel and Austrin (1957) used the California F scale and Quanty et al. (1975) used the Allport-Vernon prejudice scale.
In order to save space in the text we provide the methodology only for the new studies. The original articles may be consulted to ascertain the slight differences in methodology among the original studies.
The formula for A′ was taken from Quanty et al. (1975): \( A^{\prime} = .5 + \frac{\left( {\text {Hits}} - {\text {False}}\;{\text {Alarms}} \right)\left( 1 + {\text {Hits}} - {\text {False}}\;{\text {Alarms}} \right)}{4{\text {Hits}}\left( 1 - {\text {False}}\;{\text {Alarms}} \right)} \)
Analyses to detect curvilinear trends were conducted in all five studies, but there was never any such evidence. Also, although in general across the five studies, the relation between accuracy and prejudice was more negative for women than for men, this difference was not statistically significant across all of the studies.
It is not unheard of for the personal characteristics associated with social attitudes to change over time. As Frank (2004) showed in his book What’s the Matter With Kansas?, liberal political values used to prevail among the working class while conservatism was the creed of the upper class, but in very recent history this association has reversed itself. It is possible that there has been a corresponding shift in the psychological characteristics associated with prejudice.
Since the submission of this article the first author has continued to explore the relation between prejudice towards different outgroups and other types of interpersonal sensitivity tasks (e.g., judging emotion). This research found a similar relationship between accuracy at judging emotion and a decoding deficit for highly prejudiced persons. The similar relation of both types of accuracy with prejudice suggests that prejudiced attitudes are negatively related to several different types of nonverbal decoding skills and not just one specific type of interpersonal sensitivity.
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The authors thank Fred Gordon for his theoretical insights, Paul White for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and Lisa Babin, Christine Barry, Vanessa Castro, Michelle Cowdrick, Karima Sharif, Katie Sobiech, and Halle Thurnauer for assistance in conducting the studies.
Appendix
Appendix
Examples of criteria for determining group membership for identification tasks
Group | Clue(s) |
|---|---|
Jewish | Debbie Friedman, singer of Jewish music Tovah Feldshuh, portrays Golda Meir on stage Benny Levy, Jewish philosopher Jonathan Nissim Schulhof, married by rabbi Eugene Eisenberg, funeral at Jewish funeral home Benjamin Brafman, orthodox Jew Benjamin Blech, rabbi |
Anglo non-Jewish | Colleen Meade, married by Catholic priest Donald Menzies, funeral in Catholic church Denis Hurley, Catholic priest Mark Lanier, talks about his Christmas celebration and going to church Timothy Lucie, belongs to evangelical church Robbie O’Connell, singer of Irish songs |
Hispanic | Eunice Zavala, wife of illegal Mexican immigrant Juan Escalante, father emigrated from Mexico Marivel Gutierez, works in San Antonio, reference to Mexico Thelma Delgado-Josey, Spanish bilingual teacher Felix Arroyo, described as Latino Chita Rivera, Hispanic actress |
Arab | Djillali Antar, parents are from Algeria Ihad Rashad, comes from Egypt Abdul Raudi, comes from Morocco Saalih Allie, married by Islamic cleric Irshad Manji, says she is Muslim Tanisha Fazal, friend of the family gave Islamic blessing at ceremony |
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Andrzejewski, S.A., Hall, J.A. & Salib, E.R. Anti-Semitism and Identification of Jewish Group Membership from Photographs. J Nonverbal Behav 33, 47–58 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-008-0060-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-008-0060-z