The Role of Emotion in Racial Prejudice

Racial prejudice was defined by Allport , one of the first researchers in psychology to investigate the issue, as "an aversive or hostile attitude towards a person who belongs to a group, simply because he or she belongs to that group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to that group. It is an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization" (Allport, 1954).
Racial prejudice exists on 3 levels: behavioral, cognitive and affective. The actual discrimination or unequal treatment towards a particular group based on their race is the behavioral component of racial prejudice. The cognitive component is made up of stereotypes. Stereotypes are categories of cognitions concerning the members of a particular group. …