PREJUDICE AGAINST AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES - OLD-FASHIONED AND MODERN FORMS

Prejudice is a pervasive and destructive social problem. Theories of p rejudice distinguish between old-fashioned and modern Sor ms. The form er is an open rejection of minority group members; the latter is subtl e and covert, with a veneer of outgroup acceptance. The present study examines the distinction in the context of contemporary attitudes to A ustralian Aborigines. Separate measures of each, and of other variable s, were included in a random survey of the Perth metropolitan area in 1994. The two forms of prejudice were correlated (r = 0.55), but facto r analysis revealed that the two constructs are separable. Further, th ey were distributed differently in the population, with modern prejudi ce being more prevalent than old-fashioned prejudice (57.9 per cent sc oring above the midpoint on the modern scale, and only 21.2 per cent o n the old-fashioned scale). Modern prejudice was predicted more strong ly by social psychological variables (R-2 = 0.51) than was old-fashion ed prejudice (R-2 = 0.30), and the pattern of results from regression analyses differed for the two types of prejudice. Overall, the results confirm the distinction between old-fashioned and modern forms of pre judice, but indicate that the two are conceptually and empirically rel ated to one another. Comparisons with earlier research reveal the decl ining prevalence of old-fashioned prejudice, but indicate prejudice is still a major social problem. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.