Showing papers on "Prejudice published in 1998"

Prejudice toward Immigrants to Spain and Israel: An Integrated Threat Theory Analysis

Abstract: An integrated threat theory composed of four variables was used to predict attitudes toward immigrant groups in Spain and Israel. The four threats are symbolic threats based on value differences between groups; realistic threats to the power, resources, and well-being of the in-group; anxiety concerning social interaction with out-group members; and feelings of threat arising from negative stereotypes of the out-group. All four threats were significant predictors of attitudes toward one or more of the immigrant groups. It was predicted, and found, that intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes were more powerful and consistent predictors of prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants than were realistic threats or symbolic threats. The implications of the theory for the causes and reduction of prejudice were discussed.

Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sport

Abstract: Former athlete and coach Pat Griffin makes a provocative and impassioned call for attention to a topic too long avoided by women's sports advocates. In "Strong Women, Deep Closets," she provides a critical analysis of discrimination and prejudice against lesbians in sport.The book is the first to explore the lesbian sporting experience as well as examine homophobia and heterosexism in women's sport. The work is based on theoretical and historical foundations and is written in an academic yet engaging style. Griffin brings to light the experiences of lesbian coaches and athletes in their own words. "Strong Women, Deep Closets" concludes with Griffin's assessment of the current state of lesbians' rights in athletics, set against the overall social picture in the United States. The author lists obstacles lesbian athletes face in transforming sports and details numerous personal and political strategies for leveling the playing field.

Understanding the meanings of children: a reflexive process

Abstract: This paper identifies a number of children's voices within qualitative academic writing. It suggests that researchers can discover a variety of children's voices by employing reflexive techniques to ensure that their interpretations are not influenced by their personal prejudice, or the ethics, tools, roles and theories of their professional paradigm. It concludes that those who work with children may be able to reinforce the theme of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child by employing this reflexive approach to enable them to attribute equal status to the views of all the children whom they encounter.

Images of savages

Abstract: In Images of Savages, the distinguished psychologist Gustav Jahoda advances the provocative thesis that racism and the perpetual alienation of a racialized 'other' are a central leagacy of the Western tradition. Finding the roots of these demonizations deep in the myth and traditions of classical antiquity, he examines how the monstrous humanoid creatures of ancient myth and the fabulous "wild men" of the medieval European woods shaped early modern explorers' interpretations of the New World they encountered. Drawing on a global scale the schematic of the Western imagination of its "others," Jahoda locates the persistent identification of the racialized other with cannibalism, sexual abandon and animal drives. Turning to Europe's scientific tradition, Jahoda traces this imagery through the work of 18th century scientists on the relationship between humans and apes, the new racist biology of the 19th century studies of "savagery" as an arrested evolutionary state, and the assignment, especially of blacks, to a status intermediate between humans and animals, or that of children in need of paternal protection from Western masters. Finding in these traditional tropes a central influence upon the most current psychological theory, Jahoda presents a startling historical continuity of racial figuration that persists right up to the present day. Far from suggesting a program for the eradication of racial stereotypes, this remarkable effort nevertheless isolates the most significant barriers to equality buried deep within the Western tradition, and proposes a potentially redemptive self-awareness that will contribute to the gradual dismantling of racial injustice and alienation. Gustav Jahoda demonstrates how deeply rooted Western perceptions going back more than a thousand years are still feeding racial prejudice today. This highly original socio-historical contextualisation will be invaluable to scholars of psychology, sociology and anthropology, and to all those interested in the sources of racial prejudice.

Experiencing Everyday Prejudice and Discrimination

Abstract: Publisher Summary An individual's actions and efforts to fight against prejudice and discrimination that he may encounter in everyday life depends on how both the blatant and subtle forms of prejudice may have affected the lifestyle and thought process. In order to understand the entire reaction process, it is very important to study the everyday incidents in the life of an individual who has been the target of prejudice. This chapter aims to study how these individuals or even communities manage their own social worlds, keeping the factors of prejudice and discrimination aside. As has been highlighted in the studies of Simpson and Yinger, avoidance gradually becomes the obvious response to prejudice when subjected to it continuously. Avoidance can also be classified into psychological or behavioral, based on the reactions of the individual or the community that has been the target of prejudice. The responses demonstrated by targets of prejudice and discrimination have also been elaborately described in this chapter. An in-depth understanding of people and their experiences with prejudice and discrimination helps us learn a lot about these behaviors in general.

Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization

Abstract: U nder what conditions is group violence between previous social intimates associated with certain forms of uncertainty regarding ethnic identity? In sketching an approach to this question, I build on an argument against primordialism developed in a previous work (Appadurai 1996) and lay the foundations for a larger study of ethnic violence currently in progress. In one widely shared perspective, ethnic violence, as a form of collective violence, is partly a product of propaganda, rumor, prejudice, and memory—all forms of knowledge and all usually associated with heightened conviction, conviction capable of producing inhumane degrees of violence. But there is an alternative approach to ethnic violence, with roots traceable to Durkheim’s (1951) work on anomie and Simmel’s (1950) ideas about the stranger. This tradition of thinking—which focuses on doubt, uncertainty, and indeterminacy—has surfaced

Stress and Oppressed Social Category Membership

Abstract: Publisher Summary Stress, an extreme condition of psychological strain, is often a result of prejudice or discrimination that an individual; as a part of a cultural, sexual, or racial minority; may face in everyday life. This chapter illustrates the conceptual and empirical linkage of prejudice and discrimination to such stressful conditions. As society and its approach toward races have evolved, the studies outlined here have been based on “oppressed groups” determined as per the 20th century American socio-cultural context. To understand stress due to prejudice, it is imperative to analyze the occurrence of daily events in the life of an individual that may lead to prejudice or discrimination. Here, it should also be noted that events that stand out as stressors for oppressed groups may not necessarily have the same impact on non-oppressed groups. Understanding the psychological traditions basis, the Lazarus and Folkman models also help in understanding stress in relation to appraisal. Research has shown that various life events produce stress in women more easily as compared to men. Another perspective on stress highlights that stress can be categorized as an “organismic response.”

Appraisals of Prejudice and Discrimination

Abstract: Publisher Summary It is natural for human beings to feel very insulted, angry, and mistreated when they suffer from prejudice or discrimination in any form and this feeling of hurt or anger, more often than not, transcends into the psychological makeup. The advanced cognitive appraisal perspective developed by Lazarus and Folkman gives a comprehensive explanation of an individual's perception of prejudice and discrimination. This chapter explains the use of signal detection theory (SDT) to understand and evaluate people's behavior when subjected to any form of prejudice and discrimination. The sensitivity of an individual to prejudice can also be understood if the underlying factors like nature and perceptions of an individual, nature of the stimulus, probability of occurrence, intensity, and imminence of stimulus are well understood. Response biases also act as a major contributor to the entire reaction process and this chapter explains the factors underlying this behavior in great detail. The signal detection theory, developed by Feldman Barret, is now used in various disciplines of psychology and gives a great framework to understand the process of human judgment.

Perceptions of the Collective Other

Abstract: It is contended that perceptions of groups are affected by particular variables that do not apply to individuals (e.g., intragroup similarity and proximity). Importantly, the perception of outgroup threat has incomplete analogs at the individual level. Results from 3 studies support predictable distinctions between representations of individuals and of groups. Study I showed that priming of the word they produces more extreme negative judgments of the protagonist(s) in a story about 4 individuals acting jointly than in the same story with a single person acting alone. The opposite result holds for priming with the word he. Study 2, with Korean participants, demonstrates that actions by individuals or groups elicit differing preferences for redress. Individual responses (e.g., getting mad) to an individual racial insult (e.g., a snub by a waitress) are preferred to collective responses (e.g., circulating a petition), whereas the reverse preferences hold for a group insult (e.g., taunts from a gang of White youths). In Study 3, cues to the sensitivity of a group are introduced. This concept, introduced by Donald Campbell (1958), distinguishes different degrees of "groupness." Visual depictions of collections of unfamiliar humanoid creatures (greebles) were used to convey that they were either similar or dissimilar and either proximate or scattered. Results confirm the expectation that similarity and proximity-two entitive conditions-elicit more negative judgments of the group. Attention to other cues for entitivity may enrich social psychological views of stereotyping and prejudice by focusing on perceptions of groups as coordinated actors with the potential to bring about negative consequences. Such experiments point to the need for greater research focus on the vastly understudied but fundamental problem of the social cognition of group behavior.

Spectre of racism in health and health care: lessons from history and the United States.

Abstract: Inequalities in health and health care in relation to race and ethnicity pose ethical problems of which racism is the most disquieting. One controversial inequality is the poor health of African Americans—their life expectancy in 1993 was 7.1 years less than that of white Americans. La Veist et al have shown that the disparity has increased over this century. The deficit arises from excess mortality in relation to many causes of death, and is partly explained by differences in income.

Academic performance, prejudice, and the jigsaw classroom: new pieces to the puzzle

Abstract: This field study investigated the effects of a cooperative learning environment and a Jigsaw classroom environment on academic performance, self-esteem, liking of school, liking of peers, and racial prejudice. The subjects were 103 children in Grades 4–6, in two separate schools. The cooperative learning condition was used as a baseline measure of the effects of cooperation, against which the effects of a Jigsaw method, involving both cooperation and interdependence, were compared. The results reveal that Jigsaw produced significant improvements on measures of academic performance, liking of peers, and racial prejudice. In contrast, the effect of the cooperative condition was to exacerbate pre-existing intergroup tensions. The present findings demonstrate that the Jigsaw method can be applied successfully in Australian conditions, and lend support to Allport's contact hypothesis.

Compensating for prejudice: How heavyweight people (and others) control outcomes despite prejudice.

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter deals with the compensatory strategies that are often adopted by people who can neither avoid being victims of prejudice, nor live in peace in the face of such social prejudice. In particular, two different compensation strategies have been highlighted, which are also known as the primary and secondary compensation. The basic similarities between the challenges in the path of effective functioning and prejudices are discussed in detail in the opening section of the chapter. The perceived images of a person being “heavyweight” also have an effect on other peoples' behavior toward him/her. It is also highlighted that such prejudice, in fact, complicates the situation of “heavyweight” people all the more. The personal skill levels of an individual can be subjected to prejudice because of the individual's obesity. As a compensatory strategy for bringing down the differences between situational requirements and skill levels, such stigmatized individuals often learn to function with prejudice. While compensation may help in reducing stress and improving performance, over compensation may have disastrous effects.

Rationality and the “religious mind”

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Since the mid-1800s, religion has been a subject of sustained research within every social science except economics.(1) In the past two decades, however, widespread evidence of religion's durability, including numerous instances for religiously motivated political activism and ethnic conflict, has broadened scholarly interest in religion while also shattering the traditional scholarly consensus concerning religion's nature and future. Researchers are moving toward a new paradigm for the study of religion, which leans heavily upon the assumptions of rational choice and (religious) market equilibrium. (Warner [1993] and Young [1997] review the transition within sociology.) Though fueled by new, economic models of religious behavior, this shift finds its origins in a growing body of empirical findings that challenge traditional social-scientific views about religion. For nearly two centuries, political philosophers and social scientists approached religion as a dying vestige of our primitive, prescientific past. Religious commitment was seen as independent of, and largely antithetical to, the rational calculus. A cost-benefit approach to religious behavior made little sense, because socialization reduced most religious calculations to tautological decisions to choose what one was trained to choose. Indeed, Freud and many other influential scholars argued that intense religious commitment sprang from nothing less than neurosis and psychopathology. Although contemporary research has shed the overt, anti-religious rhetoric that characterized earlier work, it has tended to retain the antirational assumption - not because it has proved fruitful but rather because its origins are forgotten, its status unexamined, and its presence unnoticed. Traditional theories of religious behavior have accorded privileged status to the assumption of non-rationality. The assumption has, in turn, hobbled research, promoted public misconceptions, and, at times, distorted law and politics.(2) The distorting force of the received wisdom is underscored by the body of stylized facts that it has spawned. For example: that religion must inevitably decline as science and technology advance; that individuals become less religious and more skeptical of faith-based claims as they acquire more education, particularly more familiarity with science; and that membership in deviant religious "cults" is usually the consequence of indoctrination (leading to aberrant values) or abnormal psychology (due to trauma, neurosis, or unmet needs). Most people know these statements to be true, even though decades of research have proved them false (Hadden [1987], Stark and Bainbridge [1985], and Greeley [1989]). We argue below that the traditional view of religion as nonrational, not to mention irrational, emerged from a 19th century scholarly tradition largely devoid of empirical support and tainted by prejudice, ignorance, and antireligious sentiment. The relevant data suggest that most religious behavior is, in fact, associated with good mental health, is sensitive to perceived costs and benefits, and is compatible with scientific training. The data on religion and science are particularly striking. Despite continuing talk about the secularizing effects of education and academia, our analysis of data from the 1972 through 1996 General Social Surveys find that most highly educated Americans, including most professors and scientists, are as religious as other Americans. Moreover, the college faculty most acquainted with "hard" scientific knowledge - physicists, chemists, biologists, and mathematicians - are by every measure substantially more religious than their counterparts in the social sciences and humanities. It is only among anthropologists and non-clinical psychologists that we observe very high rates of disbelief and anti-religious sentiment. Before turning to these data, we will review the origins of the traditional view of religion, summarize the research on religion and mental health, and then examine some recent findings concerning the beliefs, values, and behavior of the members of deviant religious groups. …

RACISM IN THE PROVISION OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES: A Social‐Cognitive Analysis

Abstract: A social-cognitive analysis is proposed as a framework for delineating the process by which racial bias operates in the provision of mental health services. The concept of aversive racism is used to explain how the behavior and attitudes of white clinicians toward black patients can lead to differences by race in treatment and outcomes, despite lower levels of self-reported prejudice among individuals. Implications for research, practice, and professional training are discussed.

Race: The Absent Presence in Composition Studies

Abstract: go through to locate race in the first part of Ways With Words as emblematic of my experience reading much of the scholarship in composition studies where race seems to function as an absent presence. For while it is often called upon as a category to delineate cultural groups that will be the focal subjects of research studies, the relationship of race to the composing process is seldom fully explored. Instead race becomes subsumed into the powerful tropes of "basic writer," "stranger" to the academy, or the trope of the generalized, marginalized "other." But if race has been an absent presence, racism has been an absent absence. Even when the subject of a study is identified by race or ethnicity, the legacy of racism in this country which participates in sculpting all identities-white included-is more often than not absent from the analysis of that writer's linguistic capabilities or strategies. Discussions of racism in composition are confined to determining how to handle individual, aberrant flare-ups in the classroom without exploring racism as institutionalized, normal and pervasive. As Keith Gilyard has observed, race remains undertheorized, unproblematized, and underinvestigated in composition research leaving us with no means to confront the racialized atmosphere of the university and no way to account for the impact of the persistence of prejudice on writers and texts.

The Development of Prejudice Towards Gays and Lesbians by Adolescents

Abstract: The authors studied the development of gay and lesbian prejudice in white, suburban adolescents in grades 7, 9, and 11. Results parallel several major findings with adults: males were more prejudiced than females; this difference was greater towards gay males than lesbians; and same-sex prejudice was greater than opposite-sex prejudice. For males and females prejudice increased between grades 7 and 9, but from grades 9 to 11 it decreased for females and increased for males. These differences were explained by the increased vulnerability of males to defensive reactions in response to the prospect of intimate relationships. None of the personality measures were significantly correlated with prejudice.

Racism and Prejudice: An Australian Psychological Society Position Paper

Abstract: In view of the rise of racist rhetoric in Australian public life in recent years, this paper reviews psychological research on racism and prejudice as they are expressed at every level of society from government policy to the intrapersonal sphere. It draws on evidence arising from social, developmental, clinical, and community psychology. The mental health system is used as an exemplar to analyse the operation of institutionalised racism, and some observations are made about the past, present, and potential future roles of psychological research and practice in relation to race and racism. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations about ways to reduce racism and prejudice at all levels of society.

Everybody Belongs: Changing Negative Attitudes Toward Classmates with Disabilities

Abstract: The evil prosthesis of Captain Hook, the comical speech of Porky Pig, and the bumbling antics of Mr. Magoo are all examples of images in our culture which can become the basis of negative attitudes and subliminal prejudice towards persons with disabilities. These attitudes influence and underlie discriminatory acts, resulting in negative treatment and segregation. A teacher's ability to recognize and counter such images may well determine the success of inclusion and mainstreaming programs in our schools and society. Well-researched and well-written, this book offers practical guidance as grounded in solid research to schools that are wrestling with how to mainstream children with disabilities.

Prejudice and Stereotyping in Everyday Communication

Abstract: Publisher Summary It is noted that the most common expressions of prejudice and stereotyping are manifested in verbal communication, including casual conversation and the mass media. This chapter addresses both theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature of stereotypic beliefs and prejudiced attitudes as noticed in everyday communication. It is observed that when ingroup members talk to or about outgroup members, they emphasize on stereotypic qualities, which involves outgroup homogeneity often indicating that the outgroup lacks competence. Such beliefs are generally reflected in the ingroup's emphasis on stereotypic information, the outgroup exemplars they elect to describe, and in the lexical and linguistic choices they make. But, despite the pervasive stereotyping of outgroups evident in communication, ingroup members often protest that they are not prejudiced against or discriminatory toward outgroups. The chapter considers both the assertions that reflect stereotypic beliefs, as well as the assertions intended to conceal those beliefs.

Egalitarianism, Moral Obligation, and Prejudice-Related Personal Standards

Abstract: Many high-prejudice individuals' personal standards suggest that they should be less prejudiced toward Blacks than they actually are. The present research revealed that these standards are derived from a sense of personal moral obligation to temper prejudice rather than from pressure from others to moderate prejudice. The authors also investigated the influence of egalitarian values on feelings of moral obligation and, ultimately, on personal standards. Although participants viewed themselves as highly egalitarian, they differed in how they conceptualized the meaning of egalitarianism. Path analysis results were consistent with the notion that high-prejudice individuals who defined egalitarian in terms of equality of opportunity feel morally obligated to temper their prejudice, which, in turn, is associated with establishing relatively low-prejudice personal standards for responding to Blacks.

Perception and Prejudice: Race and Politics in the United States

Abstract: Based on one of the most extensive scientific surveys of race ever conducted, this book investigates the relationship between racial perceptions and policy choices in America. The contributors - leading scholars in the fields of public opinion, race relations, and political behavior - clarify and explore images of African-Americans that white Americans hold and the complex ways that racial stereotypes shape modern political debates about such issues as affirmative action, housing, welfare, and crime.

The dark side of nursing: impact of stigmatizing responses on patients

Abstract: The current emphasis in nursing is on caring, what it involves and why it is the profession's responsibility. This article focuses on the opposite behaviors--the "dark side of nursing" (Jameton, 1992). By developing a fuller understanding of nurse behaviors labeled the "dark side of nursing," the profession can better comprehend what caring involves and develop innovative ways to reduce dark-side behaviors. Although marginalizing, labeling and stereotyping, and stigmatizing are related, the focus will be on stigmatizing responses to patients. A number of investigators document nurse stereotyping of suicidal patients, persons with AIDS, racial/ethnic groups, and sex offenders and the impact on patients. Social psychological theories on stereotyping and deviant behavior provide some explanation for the nurse's behavior. The organizational perspective, however, has not been employed to enhance our understanding of nor to eliminate this phenomenon. Combining an organizational perspective with the social psychological theory of negative stereotyping (stigmatizing) and philosophical theory involving ethics provides a more comprehensive theory for understanding the "dark side of nursing" and designing interventions to reduce the occurrence of this damaging behavior.

Women and Gender : Transforming Psychology

Abstract: 1. Feminist Transformations of Psychology: Theres No Turning Back. 2. Biological Essentialism: Our Bodies, Ourselves? 3. Socialization Practices: Learning to Be Ourselves in a Gender-Polarized World. 4. Changes Across the Life Course: Womens Lives from Adolescence through Old Age. 5. Gender Comparisons: Questioning the Significance of Difference. 6. Sexism: Sexist Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. 7. Womens Multiple Roles: Achieving Satisfaction in Close Relationships. 8. Multiple Roles Continued: Work, Wages, and Closing the Gap. 9. Womens Physical Health and Well-Being: Understudied, Mythologized, but Changing. 10. Womens Mental Health and Well-Being: From 'Mental Disorders' to Feminist Practice. 11. Male Violence Against Girls and Women: Linking Fears of Violence, Harassment, Rape, and Abuse. 12. Making a Difference: Transforming Ourselves, Our Relationships, and Our Society. References. Index.

Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle For Integration

Abstract: Thirty-five years after the 1963 March on Washington, blacks and whites are still trying to achieve Martin Luther King, Jr's historic dream of racial inclusion What ever happened to integration? What happened to the vision of a single, shared community in which both blacks and whites would feel they belong? Barriers have fallen; prejudice is abating Blacks have made astonishing progress in many areas Yet if anything, King's vision seems more remote than ever, and most Americans, black and white, remain divided by anger and mistrust In "Someone Else's House", Tamar Jacoby asks what happened to the King dream, calling the nation back to its most hopeful and promising ideal of race relations Moving beyond the stale blame game of left and right, Jacoby uses history to show what's worked and what hasn't Her story of the unfinished struggle for integration leads through the volatile worlds of New York in the 1960s, the center of liberal idealism about race; Detroit in the 1970s, under the city's first black mayor, Coleman Young; and Atlanta in the 1980s and 1990s, ruled by a coalition of white businessmen and black politicians Based on extensive local research and reporting, her vivid, dramatic account evokes the specific flavor of each city and gives voice to a host of ordinary individuals, black and white, caught up in the frustrations of trying to translate a vision into reality "Someone Else's House" is a story of strong emotions and bitter conflict-- over Black Power, busing, ghetto policing and affirmative action There are occasional heroes and some villains, but very few conventional morality tales In Jacoby's view, the recent history of race relations is more often a story of blindness and tragic mistakes-- of blacks caught between their racial resentment and their yearning for integration, of whites led to do the wrong thing less by prejudice than by good intentions Jacoby's conclusions are as straightforward and clear as her history is nuanced Most of the means we've used to achieve integration haven't worked Our growing preoccupation with color consciousness leaves little room for the communality King dreamed of The ideals of the early civil rights movement-integration, forgiveness and a sense of one community based not on color but on shared national purposes-- remain the only possible American answer for race relations But if we can only listen to history, Jacoby tells us, we can still find our way back to that path

Raising children in an age of diversity-advantages of having a lesbian mother.

Abstract: Summary Research into the influence of parental lesbianism on child development has not revealed any meaningful nor significant differences between the children of lesbian and heterosexual parents While such research helps to disprove negative assumptions about lesbian mothers, the focus has been on the potential problems and disadvantages of this difference from the norm In interviews with 17 British teenagers and adults who have lesbian mothers, respondents suggested distinct advantages for themselves which they attributed to their mother's sexuality They spoke of the influence their mothers had on their moral development, particularly on their awareness of prejudice and their acceptance of diversity and of homosexuality They felt they had benefited from the insights they gained into gender relations and from the broader, more inclusive definition of family they acquired through growing up in a different kind of family

Let People Speak for Themselves: Interracial Unions and the General Social Survey:

Abstract: Social scientists from Gunnar Myrdal (1944), Gordon Allport (1958), Milton Gordon (1964), and more recently, Joseph Washington (1993), have discussed some serious obstructions to intermarriage. Yet, these scholars and others have also emphasized the ideal nature of intermarriage as a symbol of social equality. Professor G. A. Borghese of the University of Chicago asserts that "only when [the] two bloods mix freely in marriage will [the] color problem be solved" (as cited in Spickard, 1989, p. 288); and in The Nature of Prejudice, Allport (1958) argued that "intermarriage would symbolize the abolition of prejudice that is so strenuously fought" (p. 353). On the basis of these assumptions and others, it is possible to hypothesize that conceptions of color and views of social equality will be reflected in attitudes toward intermarriage. If intergroup marriage can neutralize color and offset perceived human differences in which color has only superficial value or esthetic meaning, the unions will generate nothing more than indifference. On the other hand, when color is intrinsically connected to biology and culture, is a marker of difference, and is the standard by which

Homophobia : an evolutionary analysis of the concept as applied to nursing

Abstract: Homophobia is a socially accepted, culturally based belief, which is heavily influenced by an individual’s or a community’s inherent attitudes, beliefs and values. This conceptual analysis of homophobia has endeavoured to review existing literature on homophobia and subsequently identify and examine the phobic constituents of the concept. References to homophobia are mostly from the 1970–1980 period and there is much unacknowledged conceptual baggage that accompanies the term, which results in restrictive and inappropriate ideas about this concept. This is mainly the consequence of comparisons of homophobia to other phobias, which directly infers fear of homosexuals, while in reality homophobia is more of a biased disgust at homosexuals’ lifestyles. This paper attempts to re-conceptualize homophobia so that empirical research can begin to test the critical attributes of the concept. This forms the basis for the development of a comprehensive social psychological theory of attitudes towards homosexuals. Such a theory would transcend the unilateral and unidimensional concept of homophobia as a fear and help the understanding of attitudes and feelings towards homosexuals.

Racism and sexism in medically assisted conception.

Abstract: Despite legislation and public education, racism and sexism are alive and well. Though pre-conceptive gender selection may enhance procreative liberty, this technology presents two disturbing questions. First, does sex selection represent underlying parental sexism? Second, by performing gender selection, do medical professionals perpetuate sexism? It will be maintained that pre-conceptive sex selection is sexist as it reflects parental anticipation of stereotypical gender based behavior. Perhaps even more incriminating, sex selection forces parents to prefer one sex over another, to place a value on gender. This emphasis on sex conflicts with societal goals which urge, and often legally require, individuals to ignore gender. We will assert that pre-conceptive gender selection exemplifies sexism in its purest most blatant form as prior to conception, before parents can possibly know anything about their child, gender dominates the calculus of a child’s worth. We will also emphasize that physicians, by facilitating sex selection, legitimize the motivations of their patients and provide de facto support of sexism. In a similar vein, arguments against pre-conceptive race selection will be made.