Prejudice, Orthodoxy and the Social Situation

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Abstract
Studies of racial prejudice have sometimes neglected the social situation. Racial prejudice is here examined against a background of religious fundamentalism and social change. Intense fundamentalist commitment is found to be positively correlated with racial prejudice, although subscription to “religious racism” is surprisingly rare. Moreover, a majority of these fundamentalist respondents are realists with regard to eventual integration. Gradual desegregation of businesses and schools has altered the Dallas social situation. Once strongly committed to segregation norms, these Dallasites are gradually beginning to rationalize their peaceful compliance with desegregation and are receptive to paternalistic explanations of the process. The strength of attitude responses gives some support to an explanation of attitude change in terms of dissonance theory.

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