ABSTRACT
The fact that prejudice is fundamentally incompatible with humanitarian precepts, egalitarian values, and internalized standards, as noted by Allport (1954), has been the cornerstone of many theories concerning prejudice expression and reduction. For instance, according to symbolic and modern racism theories, Whites express negative affect toward Blacks in ways that justify and rationalize their prejudices (e.g., Sears & Henry, 2003; see also Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). Aversive racism theory maintains that Whites often avoid Blacks so that their underlying negativity may remain unacknowledged, or they express their negativity only when it can be justified with nonracial explanations (e.g., Dovidio & Gaertner, 1998). Thus, people appear to be able to live comfortably with their prejudices through rationalization, justification, denial, and just plain avoiding outgroups. All of these tactics contribute to the maintenance of prejudice rather than to its change.
