Egalitarianism, Moral Obligation, and Prejudice-Related Personal Standards

Abstract

Many high-prejudice individuals' personal standards suggest that they should be less prejudiced toward Blacks than they actually are. The present research revealed that these standards are derived from a sense of personal moral obligation to temper prejudice rather than from pressure from others to moderate prejudice. The authors also investigated the influence of egalitarian values on feelings of moral obligation and, ultimately, on personal standards. Although participants viewed themselves as highly egalitarian, they differed in how they conceptualized the meaning of egalitarianism. Path analysis results were consistent with the notion that high-prejudice individuals who defined egalitarian in terms of equality of opportunity feel morally obligated to temper their prejudice, which, in turn, is associated with establishing relatively low-prejudice personal standards for responding to Blacks.