ON THE NATURE OF PREJUDICE

318 Aboudretain once the model and the reinforcement disappear. Research hashighlighted psychological processes of learning and motivation, such as theneed to make sense of the social world and one’s place in it. Peer influencesare given more weight than previously, recognizing the importanceof peer play and conflict in the learning process. Also, social developmentalistsnoticed the positive outcomes, such as fairness and perspectivetaking,that come with cognitive development. This view of the child andadolescent required major changes in how psychologists understood learningand conformity. Furthermore, because Piaget’s stages are based notonly on category development, but on changing self–other perspectives,they are relevant to identity concerns and intergroup contact. So, Allport’sstages of learning were transformed to age-related stages of category development,and finally to stages of self, social identity, and perspective taking.All three formulations require some social input, but they differ in theextent of readiness of the child to seek and make use of that input.A New Framework for Integrating CurrentResearch and TheoryRebecca Bigler, Sheri Levy, and I have developed an integrated frameworkto organize variables that are important to the acquisition and reductionof prejudice that prominently features all five theories raised previously(see figure 19.1). This framework points out how these theories can betested in combination and in comparison to one another.The framework outlined in figure 19.1 assumes that people and eventsare located within a social time and place, which alters the likelihood thatsocializers will be ingroup or outgroup members and that events andmessages about the outgroup will be positive or negative. These elementshave changed since Allport’s time, though the relations of the constructsmay not have.It is generally accepted that learning, conformity, and contact are commonmechanisms of acquisition, and so identifying one specific mechanismmay not be informative. More valuable is knowing how prejudicedmessages and behaviors are transmitted by different socializers and whythey are differentially adopted by youth who vary in age and identity. Theimportance of the child or adolescent is highlighted by the fact that at eachage developmental tasks influence the meaning of messages. Five-year-oldsare intent on figuring out social rules and regularities, whereas youngadolescents search for meaningful identities in their social space. Learning