Canadian Race Relations Foundation

This article presents the findings of a psychological study measuring the levels of ethnocentrism, social identification and discrimination in a group of participants. In order to assess levels of ethnocentrism and discriminatory behaviour, the participants were initially assessed for levels of ethnocentrism, authoritarianism, and personal need for structure. Subsequently, this group was subdivided into in-groups and out-groups- with an us-them categorization in order to assess whether there would be intergroup, ad-hoc discrimination. The results of this study indicate that positive social identity is often achieved through intergroup discrimination. Although the results of this study suggest that under manipulated situations, even groups who were assessed with low levels of discrimination could act in a discriminatory manner, those who most readily discriminate, are those who have pre-existing levels of bias and authoritarianism.

Although it is clear that under the right ideological and socio-political conditions even decent individuals can be brought to engage in extreme forms of discriminatory behaviours against disparaged out-groups, it is also the case that highly ethnocentric and authoritarian persons have often been the individuals who most readily endorsed discriminatory practices within institutionally racist settings of this century, such as South Africa, the American deep South and Nazi Germany.(p.101)