Dixon et al. prosecute a strong case against the view that prejudice is mere antipathy and against the sufficiency of standard prejudice reduction strategies for overcoming inequality, such as promoting intergroup contact and a sense of common humanity. These strategies may indeed reduce antipathy, but they do so at a cost. In particular, they blind people to the continuing existence of inequality, reduce the motivation of the disadvantaged to mount collective challenges to it, and discourage members of advantaged groups from seeking political remedies. These sedative, ironic, and atomizing effects of prejudice reduction may end up bolstering rather than overcoming inequality. According to Dixon et al., we would do better to support a collective action approach, in which the disadvantaged mobilize politically and conflict is seen as a sign of productive change rather than as a failure of social harmony.
This is a bracing and important message, but it is overstated. There need be no negative relationship between prejudice reduction solutions involving interpersonal contact and common identity and the collective action approach, and the latter is itself no panacea. The adversarial approach to intergroup relations that Dixon et al. propose, in which collective conflict is the crucible for social change, runs the risk of promoting an essentialist understanding of group differences. Whereas contact and common identity are de-essentializing – the former by individuating group members, the latter by reducing the salience of the intergroup divide – any approach that deepens and entrenches that divide, even for strategic and progressive reasons, increases the likelihood that group members will construe their differences as fundamental, defining, and immutable (Haslam et al. Reference Haslam, Rothschild and Ernst2000). Essentialist thinking of this sort is consistently associated with intergroup hostility, aversion, accentuation, and separatism (e.g., Bastian & Haslam Reference Bastian and Haslam2008; No et al. Reference No, Hong, Liao, Lee, Wood and Chao2008), and it can even increase acceptance of intergroup inequality (Williams & Eberhardt Reference Williams and Eberhardt2008), one of the supposed sedative consequences of the standard prejudice reduction approach.
The deepening and solidifying of intergroup divides that essentialist thinking encourages has obvious implications for forgiveness, reconciliation, and compromise. Dixon et al. are probably correct to observe that major social change is often set in motion by mobilization of the disadvantaged. However, this collective action will usually provoke a substantial backlash, especially if the “us and them” dynamic is exacerbated by essentialist thinking on both sides. Similarly, once some structural change has taken place, the ideal outcome would involve intergroup reconciliation, but lasting conflict is likely to follow if an essentialist view of the relevant groups has taken hold. On its own, the collective action approach has little to say about this: the disadvantaged rise up and a new day of social justice dawns. However, that day usually also brings lingering resentments, grievances, and hatreds. Those animosities are especially likely to fester when group identities are understood in exclusive, timeless, and defining – in a word, essentialist – ways.
Here perhaps is one place where the prejudice reduction approach may enable or complement the collective action approach rather than work against it. There is ample evidence that contact enhances forgiveness and reconciliation. For example, in the Northern Ireland context, Tam et al. (Reference Tam, Hewstone, Cairns, Tausch, Maio and Kenworthy2007) showed that contact increased intergroup forgiveness via more positive attitudes toward the out-group and reductions in anger and subtle dehumanization. Cehajic et al. (Reference Cehajic, Brown and Castano2008) similarly found that contact and common ingroup identification promoted forgiveness, trust, and reduced desire for social distance among Bosnian Muslims. With regard to essentialist thinking as a barrier to peace, Halperin et al. (Reference Halperin, Russell, Trzesniewski, Gross and Dweck2011) demonstrated that beliefs in the malleability of groups enhanced willingness to compromise for peace among Israeli Jews and Palestinians. In short, prejudice reduction strategies that involve contact and perceptions of shared identity and bridgeable category boundaries may help to meet the goal of social change, and without them collective action may backfire or curdle.
The collective action approach may also have some boundary conditions that leave standard prejudice reduction strategies as the best options. Some subordinate groups are so diffuse or disorganized that collective mobilization is difficult. In the Australian context, for example, public opposition toward asylum seekers is very hard to address except by a process of changing the hearts and minds of the majority through contact and humanizing media (Haslam & Holland Reference Haslam, Holland, Bretherton and Balvin2012). There is little prospect of organizing asylum seekers as a group on account of their cultural and linguistic diversity, dire circumstances, and geographic dispersion. Dixon et al. acknowledge that their approach is best suited to lasting and well-established inequalities, and it may not translate unproblematically to all forms of disadvantage.
Dixon et al. are surely right to remind us that prejudice is more than dislike and that social inequalities cannot usually be resolved merely by individual-level interventions that enhance liking. However, collective mobilization has its own problems as well and can harden hearts and intergroup boundaries in ways that work against lasting positive change. Ideally, social psychologists will discover ways in which the target article's two contrasted approaches are not “incommensurable,” but indispensable.
Dixon et al. prosecute a strong case against the view that prejudice is mere antipathy and against the sufficiency of standard prejudice reduction strategies for overcoming inequality, such as promoting intergroup contact and a sense of common humanity. These strategies may indeed reduce antipathy, but they do so at a cost. In particular, they blind people to the continuing existence of inequality, reduce the motivation of the disadvantaged to mount collective challenges to it, and discourage members of advantaged groups from seeking political remedies. These sedative, ironic, and atomizing effects of prejudice reduction may end up bolstering rather than overcoming inequality. According to Dixon et al., we would do better to support a collective action approach, in which the disadvantaged mobilize politically and conflict is seen as a sign of productive change rather than as a failure of social harmony.
This is a bracing and important message, but it is overstated. There need be no negative relationship between prejudice reduction solutions involving interpersonal contact and common identity and the collective action approach, and the latter is itself no panacea. The adversarial approach to intergroup relations that Dixon et al. propose, in which collective conflict is the crucible for social change, runs the risk of promoting an essentialist understanding of group differences. Whereas contact and common identity are de-essentializing – the former by individuating group members, the latter by reducing the salience of the intergroup divide – any approach that deepens and entrenches that divide, even for strategic and progressive reasons, increases the likelihood that group members will construe their differences as fundamental, defining, and immutable (Haslam et al. Reference Haslam, Rothschild and Ernst2000). Essentialist thinking of this sort is consistently associated with intergroup hostility, aversion, accentuation, and separatism (e.g., Bastian & Haslam Reference Bastian and Haslam2008; No et al. Reference No, Hong, Liao, Lee, Wood and Chao2008), and it can even increase acceptance of intergroup inequality (Williams & Eberhardt Reference Williams and Eberhardt2008), one of the supposed sedative consequences of the standard prejudice reduction approach.
The deepening and solidifying of intergroup divides that essentialist thinking encourages has obvious implications for forgiveness, reconciliation, and compromise. Dixon et al. are probably correct to observe that major social change is often set in motion by mobilization of the disadvantaged. However, this collective action will usually provoke a substantial backlash, especially if the “us and them” dynamic is exacerbated by essentialist thinking on both sides. Similarly, once some structural change has taken place, the ideal outcome would involve intergroup reconciliation, but lasting conflict is likely to follow if an essentialist view of the relevant groups has taken hold. On its own, the collective action approach has little to say about this: the disadvantaged rise up and a new day of social justice dawns. However, that day usually also brings lingering resentments, grievances, and hatreds. Those animosities are especially likely to fester when group identities are understood in exclusive, timeless, and defining – in a word, essentialist – ways.
Here perhaps is one place where the prejudice reduction approach may enable or complement the collective action approach rather than work against it. There is ample evidence that contact enhances forgiveness and reconciliation. For example, in the Northern Ireland context, Tam et al. (Reference Tam, Hewstone, Cairns, Tausch, Maio and Kenworthy2007) showed that contact increased intergroup forgiveness via more positive attitudes toward the out-group and reductions in anger and subtle dehumanization. Cehajic et al. (Reference Cehajic, Brown and Castano2008) similarly found that contact and common ingroup identification promoted forgiveness, trust, and reduced desire for social distance among Bosnian Muslims. With regard to essentialist thinking as a barrier to peace, Halperin et al. (Reference Halperin, Russell, Trzesniewski, Gross and Dweck2011) demonstrated that beliefs in the malleability of groups enhanced willingness to compromise for peace among Israeli Jews and Palestinians. In short, prejudice reduction strategies that involve contact and perceptions of shared identity and bridgeable category boundaries may help to meet the goal of social change, and without them collective action may backfire or curdle.
The collective action approach may also have some boundary conditions that leave standard prejudice reduction strategies as the best options. Some subordinate groups are so diffuse or disorganized that collective mobilization is difficult. In the Australian context, for example, public opposition toward asylum seekers is very hard to address except by a process of changing the hearts and minds of the majority through contact and humanizing media (Haslam & Holland Reference Haslam, Holland, Bretherton and Balvin2012). There is little prospect of organizing asylum seekers as a group on account of their cultural and linguistic diversity, dire circumstances, and geographic dispersion. Dixon et al. acknowledge that their approach is best suited to lasting and well-established inequalities, and it may not translate unproblematically to all forms of disadvantage.
Dixon et al. are surely right to remind us that prejudice is more than dislike and that social inequalities cannot usually be resolved merely by individual-level interventions that enhance liking. However, collective mobilization has its own problems as well and can harden hearts and intergroup boundaries in ways that work against lasting positive change. Ideally, social psychologists will discover ways in which the target article's two contrasted approaches are not “incommensurable,” but indispensable.