Prejudice as Group Position: Microfoundations of a Sociological Approach to Racism and Race Relations

1999/01/01 by Lawrence D. Bobo · 840 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Empirical research #Epistemology #Gender studies #Microfoundations #Philosophy #Position (finance) #Positive economics #Prejudice (legal term) #Psychology #Race (biology) #Racism #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00127

published in Journal of Social Issues 55(3), 445-472 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1999/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

This research integrates and elaborates the basic premises of Blumer's group position theory of prejudice. It does so in order to make explicit, more fully integrated, and empirically pliable the theoretical foundations of a sociological analysis of the nature of racial prejudice. In so doing, the research identifies important areas of agreement between Gordon Allport's approach to prejudice and that of Blumer. Blumer neither provided a full synthetic statement of his several major pieces on prejudice nor pursued sustained empirical research in the area. Hence, the present article (1) identifies the core assumptions of the group position model, (2) summarizes a recent line of empirical work examining claims embedded in the group position approach, (3) specifies how this approach differs from other closely related approaches, and (4) identifies major tasks for future theoretical and empirical work.

Citations

• Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe

Cited by

• Consequences of Diversity for Social Cohesion and Prejudice: The Missing Dimension of Intergroup Contact
• The relationship between outgroup size and anti-outgroup attitudes: A theoretical synthesis and empirical test of group threat- and intergroup contact theory
• Americanness Hierarchies: Partisanship and Perceptions of Racial Group Positions
• Private Choices, Public Consequences: Magnet School Choice and Segregation by Race and Poverty
• Opposition to Pro‐Immigrant Public Policy: Symbolic Racism and Group Threat
• On Fertile Ground: How Racial Resentment Primes White Americans To Believe Fraud Accusations
• The Association of Cognitive Ability with Right–Wing Ideological Attitudes and Prejudice: A Meta–Analytic Review
• Rethinking racism again? Assessing conceptual deadlocks and innovations in race theory
• The Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation
• Social Position and Place-Protective Action in a New Immigration Context: Understanding Anti-Mosque Campaigns in Catalonia
• E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty‐first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture
• Race Talk to Change Carceral Attitudes: A Field Experiment on Deep Canvass Organizing
• Migrant Deaths at Borders and Immigration Attitudes: Evidence from the 2013 Lampedusa Shipwreck
• Terrorist Events and Attitudes toward Immigrants: A Natural Experiment
• Contention, Cohesion, and Beyond: An Overview of Black‐Latinx Relations in the United States
• Integration policies shape ethnic-racial majorities’ threat reactions to increasing diversity
• “They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats”: xenophobia and group threat as a path to the White House
• Do integration policies relate to economic and cultural threat perceptions? A comparative study in Europe
• Public school choice and integration evidence from Durham, North Carolina
• “Taking What's Ours”: Restrictionist Attitudes Toward Immigration and Threat to Sense of Group Position in the United States
• Debunking rhetorical myths about diversity, equity and inclusion in the Trump era
• Sexual Orientation Differences in Whites’ Racial Attitudes
• It’s All in the Definition: Color‐Blind Interpretations of School Diversity
• Racially Charged Cookies and White Scholarships: Anti-Affirmative Action Protests on American College Campuses
• Prejudice: Toward a More Inclusive Understanding.
• Patrolling Your Blind Spots: Introspection and Public Catharsis in a Medical School Faculty Development Course to Reduce Unconscious Bias in Medicine
• The Partisan Sorting of “America”: How Nationalist Cleavages Shaped the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
• Aversive Racism
• The Jigsaw classroom under test: No effect on intergroup relations evident
• Relative Deprivation and Relative Wealth Enhances Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: The V-Curve Re-Examined. [europepmc]
• Being here First: Ethnic Majority Children's Autochthony Beliefs and Attitudes toward Immigrants. [europepmc]
• Social Trust and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Europe: A Longitudinal Multi-Level Analysis. [europepmc]
• The EU Referendum and Experiences and Fear of Ethnic and Racial Harassment: Variation Across Individuals and Communities in England. [europepmc]
• (Not) part of the team: Racial empathy bias in a South African minimal group study. [europepmc]
• From culturalisation to individuation: the role of urban spaces in shaping intergroup contacts and symbolic boundary perceptions. [europepmc]
• When out-groups are perceived as out of place: urban disorder sensitivity and environmental distance. [europepmc]
• Collective psychological ownership as a new angle for understanding group dynamics [europepmc]

Related

• The Psychology of Prejudice: Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hate?
• Toleration and prejudice‐reduction: Two ways of improving intergroup relations
• Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe
• Horizontal Hostility; Relations Between Similar Minority Groups
• A model for predicting prejudice and stigma expression by understanding target perceptions: The effects of visibility, politicization, responsibility, and entitativity