@article{Heylen_Pauwels_2015, title={The Social Roots of Contemporary Prejudice}, volume={4}, url={https://www.lifescienceglobal.com/pms/index.php/ijcs/article/view/2682}, DOI={10.6000/1929-4409.2015.04.03}, abstractNote={<p><em>Background</em>: Evolutionary theory suggests prejudice may be a result of the evolution of human sociality. In this study, we investigate this claim by integrating theoretical insights of evolutionary theory with the well-established social psychological research on prejudice centering on Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) as the main predictors of prejudice.</p> <p><em>Method</em>: First, we developed two different signaling scales, probing respondents’ propensity to signal group commitment in a genuine or deceptive way. We administered a questionnaire consisting of the two signaling measures, RWA, SDO and prejudice measures to 1380 students. Analysis of the data was done using structural equation modeling.</p> <p><em>Results</em>: Our results indicate that genuine signaling of one’s commitment to the in-group is positively associated with RWA, and that deceptively signaling one’s commitment to the in-group is positively associated with SDO. Both RWA and SDO are positively related to prejudice.</p> <p><em>Conclusion</em>: Our study is the first to empirically reveal the pro-social roots of prejudice using classical measurement instruments. The findings give rise to a new array of research questions.</p>}, journal={International Journal of Criminology and Sociology}, author={Heylen, Ben and Pauwels, Lieven J.R.}, year={2015}, month={Jan.}, pages={28–35} }