ABSTRACT
Not every society is equally ethnocentric. The potentiality for prejudice is not evenly spread in individuals or in societies, and is even less evenly demonstrated in overt acts of discrimination, repression or savagery. Why do some individuals show more prejudice than others? Why do some cultures seem to be more 'prejudice-prone'? These are questions about the very nature of the relationship between social character and surrounding, supporting culture. Why do some cultures build into individuals more need for prejudice than others? How and why do societies provide 'suitable' target groups for the expression of prejudice? Why are the target groups so often the same (darker-skinned people, Jews or other religiously defined out-groups, foreigners)? Why are the attributes ascribed to them so often the same? (Katz and Braly, 1933). What can be learned from those cases where they are not the same? What permits and gives power to the force and frequency of overt discriminatory acts? We know a little about the personality development of at least one category of very common prejudiced belief from the work of Adorno et al. (1950) in The Authoritarian Personality, but why is this so common a form in Western societies? Is it universal?
