What causes prejudice? How may we solve it? Lay beliefs and their relations with classical and modern prejudice and social dominance orientation

This research aimed to examine lay beliefs about the causes of and solutions to ethnic prejudice towards immigrant populations in the Italian context. The research had two main goals: (a) to explore in Italy what non-experts think causes ethnic prejudice against immigrants, and how they suggest we combat it; (b) to assess whether lay perceptions of causes of ethnic prejudice mediate the relationship between SDO and ethnic prejudice, and whether such mediational effects would depend on the form of ethnic prejudice considered (classical vs. modern). In particular, we hypothesized that lay beliefs about the causes of (but not lay beliefs about solutions to) prejudice towards immigrants may mediate the relation between SDO and prejudice towards immigrants. 520 Italian high school students participated in the study and completed a set of questionnaires regarding these issues. Results showed that Italian respondents were especially likely to attribute the causes of ethnic prejudice towards immigrants to ignorance and close-mindedness, and to recommend as main solutions open-mindedness and tolerance of others’ values. Moreover, as predicted, beliefs about causes of ethnic prejudice significantly mediated the relation between SDO and modern (but not classical) prejudice. Implications of our findings for social dominance theory were discussed.