ABSTRACT
Those seeking to understand the nature and origins of bigoted violence are likely to be disappointed by extant scholarship on prejudice, racism, and discrimination. Although many scholars aspire to explain behavioral manifestations of intergroup hostility, this literature is dominated by the investigation of attitudes and beliefs. Study after study examines how adults regard minority groups and policies designed to advance minority interests (for a recent overview, see Sears et al., 2000), typically relying on surveys to gauge what is variously termed prejudice, intolerance, racism, or xenophobia. Although survey researchers assess prejudice in increasingly sophisticated ways (see Fazio et al., 1995; Hurwitz & Peffley 1998), they devote relatively little attention to the study of prejudiced conduct, apart from voting behavior. Behavioral manifestations of prejudice figure more prominently in the work of social psychologists, but the laboratory experiments that dominate this literature are often contrived and rely almost entirely on undergraduate subjects. A small number of field experiments or unobtrusive studies of bigotry (Crosby et al., 1980; Kremer et al., 1986; Fix & Struyk 1993) focus on behavioral data to assess the pervasiveness of prejudice, but these studies tend not to link patterns of behavior to contextual factors such as economic conditions, levels of residential segregation, and the like. It might take the better part of a lifetime to read the prodigious research literature on prejudice, particularly if one were to include studies that investigate the manner in which institutions, organizations, and social groups have introduced, perpetuated, or dismantled discriminatory practices and policies throughout the world. Yet, scarcely any of this research examines directly and systematically the question of why prejudice erupts into violence.
