Group socialization and prejudice: the social transmission of intergroup attitudes and beliefs

In order to examine the social transmission of prejudice in the military, a ttitudes and beliefs of Francophone (minority) and Anglophone (majority) pr ospective military officers toward their own and other groups were assessed at the beginning and at the end of a four-year officer-training program. C onsistent with social dominance theory and system justification theory, maj ority group members become significantly more negative toward outgroups (e. g. Francophones, civilians and immigrants) and more likely to internalize b eliefs that legitimize the economic gap between Francophones and Anglophone s in Canada. Moreover, as predicted on the basis of self-categorization the ory, the results show that identification with the category 'Canadian Force s Officers' assessed at the midpoint in the program, moderates the change i n intergroup attitudes and beliefs. Finally, minority group members did not internalize negative stereotypes of their own group. These results provide important evidence for the role of group socialization in the explanation of intergroup attitudes and beliefs and suggest that social identification is a key factor in group socialization, consistent with self-categorization theory. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.