Emotional attitude and motives of dislike as predictors of discriminatory attitudes

Abstract

The emotional attitude towards outgroup representatives may differ depending on the target of discrimination. Establishing the role of emotional relationships and the motivation of dislike in adherence to certain combined types of discriminatory attitudes will contribute to the development of measures to counteract them. The aim of the study is to establish emotional attitudes towards representatives of outgroups and the motives of dislike, which are predictors of discriminatory attitudes. The study involved 190 people of both sexes (men — 36.6%), aged 20–40 years. The survey methods of direct and indirect assessment of discriminatory attitudes, affective reactions towards representatives of discriminated groups, motives of dislike, methods of mathematical data processing (descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses, modeling method) were used. The combination of forms of emotional attitude and motivation in the prediction of types of discriminatory attitudes, as well as direct and indirect effects of emotional relationships on generalized forms of discriminatory attitudes, has been revealed. Anger and anxiety act as emotional attitudes towards representatives of outgroups, causing a general discriminatory attitude, while interest and disgust contribute to its reduction. The predictors of discriminatory attitudes towards socially vulnerable groups are fear (positive), interest and pity (negative); dissident groups — anger and fear; outsider groups — anger and disgust; social status groups — irritation and aggression (positive), disgust and interest (negative). The strongest motivational predictors of discriminatory attitudes are the motivation of competition in the labor market in the case of dissident, socially-status and even socially unprotected groups, as well as hostility based on an emotional attitude in the case of dissident and socially-outsider groups. Various emotional attitudes and motivations of rejection towards outgroup representatives explain a significant part of the dispersion of generalized forms of discriminatory attitudes. Generalized discriminatory attitudes are characterized by heterogeneous emotional conditioning and polymotivation.