Topic > Understanding race, ethnicity, and social power…

There are several speculations about why people are prejudiced. Psychologist John Dollard believes that people take out their frustration on a scapegoat, which in this case is a racial, ethnic, or minority group. Another psychologist, Theodor Adorno, believed that prejudice comes from a person's personality. He did an experiment and concluded that people who were insecure and listened to their superiors defined an authoritarian personality. From a sociological perspective, functionalists believe that prejudice is the result of the social environment. Conflict theorists believe that capitalists try to keep workers divided so they can keep wages low. They do so out of fear of unemployment or a reserve workforce. They also encourage and manipulate racial and ethnic division. The division between racial and ethnic groups in employment is called a divided labor market. Symbolic interactionists believe that labels create selective perceptions or allow us to see and block others and these labels cause