CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL PRESSURE AND RACIAL PREJUDICE AMONG WHITE SOUTH-AFRICANS

To determine if conformity to social pressures is an important determinant of racial prejudice, particularly in social groups where prejudice is normative, I expanded the typical bivariate correlational design used by previous researchers into an interactional design incorporating three measures of conformity proneness. Results of a study of 303 White college students in pre-reform South Africa indicated that correlations between social pressure and racial prejudice were not due to conformity and probably reflected mechanisms such as socialization and homophilic selection. Conformity proneness also showed little association with overall racial prejudice or deviation from modal prejudice levels. In addition, authoritarianism was a powerful correlate of prejudice regardless of the degree of normative pressure experienced. The theory that prejudice is determined by normative conformity needs to be fundamentally reappraised.