I think you will find all the answers here...http://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Mans-Image-implications-ebook/dp/B002TLTKTU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359326351&sr=1-1

Dear Alan, thank you for pointing to your book. Could you briefly summarize what your answer is to my question above? Thanks!

You might want to look at Dovidio & Gaertners' research on aversive racism. The problem with your questions is that almost everyone is motivated to suppress blatant prejudice...see Plant & Devine.

Kathy, thank you for your suggestions. I know the aversive racism framework and find it very interesting and an important contribution to the field. However, I was looking for a particular empirical study that examines more closely how high prejudice people (or, for that matter, those who admit to be highly prejudiced by giving extreme answers to explicit items/questions) . Do you know a particular study? Thanks!

PS: The Plant/Devine (1998) piece you are referring to is this, right? "Internal and External Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice" in JPSP Vol 75(3)

I have always been bothered by the approach that has been taken here. While there are only modest correlations between prejudice and discriminatory behavior, couldn't we assume that almost all those engaging in discriminatory behavior are also prejudiced? The argument about the modest correlation is often used to dismiss research on attitudes as poor predictors of behavior, but aren't they the only predictors we have?

Rosie, thanks for joining the conversation! I think, an interesting question is how common the following types of people are and which one is more common: the "unprejudiced discriminator" or the "prejudiced non-discriminator" (to use Merton's terms from his 1949 chapter in "Discrimination and National Welfare")? Obviously, this is related to the question what mechanisms link prejudice and discrimination (i.e. what theoretical model explains the connection best). For now, all I am interested in are studies examining the high prejudice guys and their likelihood of actually discriminating in different situations -- can you think of a piece that addresses this question? Thanks!

I really can't, since my research has all been on the attitude side of things. I am eager to follow this discussion, though, and learn about recent research that is delving into what you're talking about. I think this is a very important line of research.

Rosie: Bummer! Let's hope somebody else here has an idea...

I can't help point you to an article beyond what people here have already done, but I do think that the reason no one can point to an article focusing on high prejudice individuals is because people don't write them. It is hard to find a large enough group of people who admit to something as socially unacceptable as having high levels of prejudice. I have worked on 4 studies using the integrated model of racism and I think of the 400-500 participants in those studies maybe 2 scored in a range I would say was high prejudice. There just isn't the population in any single location that would allow for a study to be published on this group.

Sorry I can't be much more helpful than that.

I think that there could be some kind of research using the symbolic racism scale (Henry & Sears), but you'd have to set it up as an experiment that controls for discriminatory behavior. How, I have no idea. It would be difficult, though, since in order for the results to be at all accurate, it would have to involve deception of the study participants, and that would be very tough to get through IRB.

The intension of the discriminatory behaviour is superiority complex. It is a strategy to achieve control over that group in the society.

Anthony, this implies that people are in a position to do so. Public opinion studies that identify types and intensity of prejudiced thinking have not been able to scientifically link these to discriminatory behavior. Just because someone thinks black people are inferior doesn't necessarily mean that they will go out and lynch them. While i personally agree that people who think black people are inferior are more likely to participate in a lynching than people who do not, studies have not successfully determined that this is true with any kind of statistical certainty. What they HAVE shown is that people engage in discriminatory behavior for all sorts of reasons - personal interest, peer pressure, etc - that are not necessarily linked to prejudiced opinions. A systematic and causal link between prejudice and discriminatory behavior has not been established in any field, as far as I know (and I follow this literature quite closely).

I agree that finding one article that estimates a percentage of "highly prejudiced people" who then discriminate would be challenging, because both "prejudice" and "discrimination" can be broadly defined. An earlier answer also suggested that finding high prejudice people is hard - but I think it depends on your prejudice. For example, I study prejudice based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and whoa boy people are willing to share their prejudices on those topics in the US. But also like another comment stated, we found that other predictors (such as threats to masculinity) are better predictors of how does nasty things to LGBT people than prejudice per say. Unfortunately, I can't recommend an article to answer your question because in a way it might be too broad (again, definitional issues). Were you chasing a specific type of discrimination? Or a specific prejudice?

Rebecca, thank you for sharing your thoughts! As I stated in the question details, I am interested in studies that explicitly estimate the proportion of extremely prejudiced people that engages in discriminatory behavior of any kind. So, no restrictions with regard to involved actors or groups and particular environments. Obviously, defining and identifying "high-prejudice persons" (to quote Devine 1989) is not and cannot be a perfectly objective endeavor, but the more studies (=the more replications), the clearer the picture. It seems that there are not too many studies out there -- maybe because the question is a little trivial on first sight and not of much intellectual or analytic value. I simply wanted to get a feeling of the mean proportion of high-prejudice persons engaging in discrimination (under different conditions) and the variation (due to different conditions). Of course this depends heavily on opportunities and restrictions in a given situation.

Anthony, thank you but I am more interested in published studies I can cite.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10887

I assume you have read this

"Measuring Discrimination"

Methods for Assessing Discrimination

Rebecca M. Blank, Marilyn Dabady, and Constance F. Citro, Editors

Committee on National Statistics

Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Washingon, D.C.

www.nap.edu

available for free on their website