Customer Reviews

The Nature of Prejudice: 25th Anniversary Edition

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If you have truely studied Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X then you have probably seen pictures of this book next to them on their desks. Don't think for one minute that you understand prejudice without reading this book first. It explains why prejudice occurs and how it is part of our basic makeup. Mr. Allport also explains how to change these perceptions that generate the discrimination. For any Civil Rights Advocate this is a must read. It puts you inside the mind of those who practice bigotry and discrimination. If you cannot understand them then how can you defeat them.

When I page through this book I'm astounded that it was written in 1954. This is truly a ground-breaking work in both psychology and sociology. 537 pages, well indexed, with references. Some of the many topics covered include:
attitudes and beliefs
acting out prejudice
the separation of human groups
personal values as categories
sex as an in-group
social distance
verbal rejection
riots and lynching
the essential role of rumor
the neurosis of extreme conformity
social regulation of aggression
cultural devices to ensure loyalty
scapegoats for special occasions
the demagogue as a person
- and so on- it's a chilling but necessary read, and there is great satisfaction in owning the first edition of such and important work.

Allport's The Nature of Prejudice is written in a very comprehensive manner that allows you to reflect upon your own experience in prejudices both internal and external. This book is a classic and sheds light on inter-cultural and intra-cultural understanding in the years to come.

While this book has some important ideas, I found it quite outdated, and thus hard to read. Many of the views stated are sexist by current standards, and some of the theories have been discredited since the book was written. I think this book is best read with a contemporary book to indicate what has changed.

Gordon Willard Allport (1897-1967) was an American psychologist and professor at Harvard, as well as one of the founding figures of personality psychology.

He writes in the Preface to this 1958 book, "The present volume does not pretend to deal with the science of human relations as a whole. It aims merely to clarify one underlying issue---the nature of human prejudice. But this issue is basic, for without knowledge of the roots of hostility we cannot hope to employ our intelligence effectively in controlling its destructiveness."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Perhaps the briefest of all definitions of prejudice is: thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant." (Pg. 7)
"(W)e note an almost universal principle in respect to overlapping group differences: the diffences within the same group are greater (i.e., the range is wider) than the differences between the averages of the two groups." (Pg. 102)
"Now, what are the facts? Do Negroes, for example, have a distinctive body odor or not? ... (in an experiment) the offensiveness seems to come equally from the sweaty bodies of the two races. Odor is a curious psychological shibboleth. It is made to bear the brunt of intimate subjective feelings (and prejudices), but its role seems primarily to be that of an 'objective' excuse or rationalizer for affective states that are too personal and private to be understood or analyzed in their own right." (Pg. 135-136)
"Even those who favor segregation do not want Negroes to develop their own language or their own laws. They want they to be amalgamated in certain respects. And even those who argue for assimilation may wish to preserve certain pleasant cultural traits---perhaps the cuisine of the French, Negro spirituals, Polish folk dances, St. Patrick's Day." (Pg. 231-232)
"(A)bout a half of all prejudiced attitudes are based only on the need to conform to custom, to let well enough alone, to maintain the cultural pattern." (Pg. 272)
"(N)ot every American experiences the dilemma as (Gunnar) Myrdal defines it (in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (Black and African-American Studies) Volume 1). But many do. the theory, therefore, is valid enough if we take it to mean that often (but not always) prejudice is attended by mental conflict." (Pg. 315)

I've really been enjoying this book. Many of the ideas are still relevant to studies done today, and the stuff that is more historical is incredibly interesting.

There were things that I both liked and disliked about the book. Gordon W. Allport did a good job at showing you that prejudice is in your life from the very beginning till the very end, no matter who you are. Bringing up the nature vs. nurture debate numerous times made you really think about your own experiences and how you relate to the different situations he is bringing up. At the same time, the book had a tendency to become extremely repetitive and thick to read through. I felt that it got overwhelming and notably boring many times throughout the book, but when you thought back to what you read, you were amazed at what you got out of it. I don't think I would advise anyone to read this book, unless they are planning on taking the book a very little bit at a time, then coming back and picking it up again where they left off.

There were things that I both liked and disliked about the book. Gordon W. Allport did a good job at showing you that prejudice is in your life from the very beginning till the very end, no matter who you are. Bringing up the nature vs. nurture debate numerous times made you really think about your own experiences and how you relate to the different situations he is bringing up. At the same time, the book had a tendency to become extremely repetitive and thick to read through. I felt that it got overwhelming and notably boring many times throughout the book, but when you thought back to what you read, you were amazed at what you got out of it. I don't think I would advise anyone to read this book, unless they are planning on taking the book a very little bit at a time, then coming back and picking it up again where they left off.