P. J. Henry

The origins of symbolic racism.

The theory of symbolic racism places its origins in a blend of anti-Black affect and conservative values, particularly individualism. We clarify that hypothesis, test it directly, and report several findings consistent with it. Study 1 shows that racial prejudice and general political conservatism fall into 2 separate factors, with symbolic racism loading about equally on both. Study 2 found that the anti-Black affect and individualism significantly explain symbolic racism. The best-fitting model both fuses those 2 elements into a single construct (Black individualism) and includes them separately. The effects of Black individualism on racial policy preferences are mostly mediated by symbolic racism. Study 3 shows that Black individualism is distinctively racial, with effects distinctly different from either an analogous gender individualism or race-neutral individualism.

College Sophomores in the Laboratory Redux: Influences of a Narrow Data Base on Social Psychology's View of the Nature of Prejudice

Twenty years have passed since Sears (1986) alerted social psychologists to the many possible dangers faced by relying on a database composed mostly of students, especially with respect to the generalizability of the theoretical conclusions we come to. With a focus this time on the prejudice literature, this article examines how much has changed in our approach to whom we study. Content analyses show that prejudice researchers who publish in social psychologys major journals continue to rely heavily on student samples. Next, data are presented showing that important differences may exist between student and nonstudent participants in terms of how prejudice-related variables are expressed and used. The article concludes by raising metatheoretical concerns about the continued use of student samples both in the conclusions we arrive at as a science and in the very topics we study in the prejudice literature, with various recommendations suggested for decreasing this trend in relying on such a narrow database.

The Contact Hypothesis Revisited Status Bias in the Reduction of Implicit Prejudice in the United States and Lebanon

Although 50 years of research demonstrate that friendly intergroup contact reduces intergroup prejudice, the findings are based solely on self-reported, explicit prejudice. In two parallel experiments examining intergroup contact and prejudice—between Whites and Blacks in the United States (Experiment 1) and between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon (Experiment 2)—we examined whether intergroup status differences moderate contact effects on implicit prejudice, as well as explicit prejudice. Both experiments replicated the standard effect of contact on explicit prejudice. They also demonstrated that intergroup contact reduces implicit prejudice among low-status groups. In Experiment 1, the implicit prejudice of Blacks toward Whites (but not Whites toward Blacks) was reduced as a function of friendly contact. In Experiment 2, the implicit prejudice of Muslims toward Christians (but not Christians toward Muslims) was reduced as a function of friendly contact.

Low-status compensation: A theory for understanding the role of status in cultures of honor.

The mechanisms that link herding regions to cultures of honor have never been empirically tested. The objective of the present article is to show the important role that issues of status play in linking herding regions to cultures of honor using the theory of low-status compensation (P. J. Henry, 2008b) Four studies are presented. Study 1 replicates the finding that counties in the American South conducive to herding have higher murder rates than do counties conducive to farming but shows those differences are mediated by indicators of status disparities in a county. Study 2 replicates the findings of Study 1 with an international sample of 92 countries. Study 3 tests the theoretical idea that people who are low in socioeconomic status face stigma in society and show self-defensive strategies generally. Finally, Study 4 provides experimental evidence that low-status tendencies toward aggressing in the face of insults may be due to strategies to protect their sense of social worth. The results are contextualized within the theory of low-status compensation as a theory for understanding the role status plays in predicting some forms of violence.

Social Dominance and Social Identity in Lebanon: Implications for Support of Violence Against the West

We examined various group identifications among Lebanese Muslims and Christians after the events of September 11 2001 and how these identifications related to social dominance orientation (SDO) and support for violence against the West. We expected stronger identification with less powerful groups to be associated with lower SDO (i.e. greater desires for group equality), and stronger support for terrorist organizations and violent acts against powerful nations. Consistent with these expectations, we found that SDO related negatively to identification with Arabs, and this group identification related positively to support for terrorist organizations and feelings that the September 11 attack was justified. Furthermore, we found that the direct negative effect of SDO on support for terrorism was mediated by Arab identification. Efforts to reduce conflict are discussed in terms of recognizing the anti-dominance elements of Arab identification in Lebanon, and the powerful implications that this subordinate group identification has for continued support of terrorist organizations and violence against the West.

Gender Inequality and Gender Differences in Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism may be endorsed in part as a means of managing and buffering psychological threats (e.g., Duckitt & Fisher, 2003; Henry, 2011). Building on this research, the authors postulated that authoritarianism should be especially prevalent among women in societies with high levels of gender inequality because they especially face more psychological threats associated with stigma compared with men. After establishing that authoritarianism is, in part, a response to rejection, a psychological threat associated with stigma (Study 1), the authors used multilevel modeling to analyze data from 54 societies to find that women endorsed authoritarian values more than men, especially in individualistic societies with high levels of gender inequality (Study 2). Results show that the threats of stigma for women are not uniform across different cultures and that the degree of stigma is related to the degree of endorsement of psychologically protective attitudes such as authoritarianism.

Arab Attributions for the Attack on America The Case of Lebanese Subelites

There are at least two major ways of understanding the attributions that Arab young people used to explain the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center: (a) in terms of a so-called clash of civilizations or an inherent conflict between Muslim and Western values or (b) in terms of an antidominance reaction to perceived American and Israeli oppression of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. The authors compare the relative validities of these two framings using a sample of Lebanese students from the American University of Beirut. The results from analysis of variance, regression, and structural equation modeling showed strong, clear, andconsistentsupportforthe antidominance attributionsandessentially nosupport for the clash-of-civilizations attributions.

Student Sampling as a Theoretical Problem

To begin, I am honored to have such a distinguished cast of commentators, all whose work I admire and who have played critical roles in theory development in the prejudice literature. A special honor is to have a commentary by Sears, who inspired this work with his seminal piece more than 20 years ago. I am pleased that my perhaps unfortunate choice of the word Redux in the target article title did not lead to responses that were “ho-hum, here we go again.”1 Although each of the commentators had his or her share of critiques and reservations concerning my central arguments about the problem of overreliance on student samples in prejudice research, each engaged the issue as a problem worth debating, with reactions ranging from at least “sympathy” to viewing the problem as “unassailable,” “unimpeachable,” and “true.” Nevertheless, the commentaries helped to put the problem of student sampling into perspective, although ultimately I believe that the commentators and I share more agreement than disagreement. Many of the criticisms may rest more in clarification issues surrounding my basic argument rather than in real philosophical differences between us. My objective in this reply is to defend the core idea that student sampling for prejudice researchers is not just a methodological or applied problem but ultimately a theoretical problem. I try to integrate and contextualize many of the important points raised by the commentaries as well as qualify my initial position where appropriate.

The relationship between authoritarianism and life satisfaction changes depending on stigmatized status

Members of stigmatized social groups are typically more authoritarian than their nonstigmatized or higher status counterparts. We draw on research demonstrating that authoritarianism compensates for the negative effects of stigma to predict that this endorsement will be more psychologically beneficial (and less harmful) for the stigmatized compared to their high-status counterparts. Consistent with this idea, data from the 2008 (N = 2,322) and 2012 (N = 5,916) American National Election Study indicate that for members of stigmatized social groups (low income, low education, and ethnic minority), authoritarian child rearing values have more positive psychological effects than for members of high-status groups. These results were robust to covariates, including demographics, religiosity, political ideology, and cognitive style.

Ambivalent sexism in the United Arab Emirates: Quantifying gender attitudes in a rapidly modernizing society

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has prioritized increasing equality between men and women. This research investigates whether equality initiatives are reflected in residents’ attitudes toward women. Five hundred eighty-four Arab participants completed measures of ambivalent sexism, religiosity, and political conservatism, and reported stereotypes about women. Results suggest that Arab participants score similarly on measures of hostile and benevolent sexism to participants from other countries high in economic and political gender inequality; and measures of hostility and benevolence correlate with social attitudes as they do elsewhere around the globe. However, unlike in other datasets exploring contexts of high gender inequality, Arab women score significantly lower on benevolent sexism than men. We explore these findings in light of political and legal policies that have different implications for women’s empowerment in the public and private spheres.