| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction to the Handbook on Prejudice |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
(2) it is the level of convictions and values that steer our orientation and action, and (3) it is the domain in which convictions and values are fixated and shielded from critical reflections. A large portion of the theory of stereotypes is concerned with cognitive structures of categorisation and is thus related to the first point. The study of prejudice, on the other hand, is obviously related to the third point. What is often overlooked, however, is the second point, which has to do with the nonconscious quality of our central value orientations. Before addressing the topic of prejudices, I will briefly examine this often neglected category under the term bias.
2. Bias
Bias is a word that is seldom used in a positive and affirmative sense. Usually, it refers to something to which one professes to be immune. The referee of a soccer match must be as free of it as the judge at a trial or the scientist in her investigation. Impartiality is a professional norm in various domains, and for those who govern and are in power, it is an essential requirement for making fair decisions and choices. On another level, however, humans are not objective animals. They cannot help being committed to certain norms and values. I will here refer to normative and orienting value commitments under the positive term bias. It has to do with deeper loyalties that cannot be explained in a rational way. It is due to this positive bias, for instance, that partners maintain their marriage relationship instead of breaking up for what may seem to be more exciting and gratifying choices. Positive bias is not only an assertion of one's individual and collective loyalties, it also helps to consolidate a status quo and prevent cognitive dissonance. We hear little about prejudices of this sort, writes G. W. Allport, because love and loyalty by themselves “create no social problems” (2000, 30). Let us pause for a moment, however, and briefly reflect on the nature of positive prejudice.
The human propensity to be anchored in and committed to one's home base is usually called ethnocentrism. Bias is here used as a more general term for this universal disposition in individuals and groups. It testifies