Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T09:41:59.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Nicole's Father is NOT German! The Immutability of Differences, and the Social Construction of their Moral and Political Salience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2010

Kristen Renwick Monroe*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Rose McDermott
Affiliation:
Brown University
*
Please address correspondence to Kristen Monroe.

Abstract

Why are differences so political significant? Too often political science discussions of differences assume they are immutable. The attendant implication is that the political divisions attached to these variations—in religion, ethnicity, race, or any of the other dissimilarities that frequently enter political life—are considered rigid and inflexible. This commentary draws on recent work in moral and social psychology and evolutionary biology to suggest that the critical political factor surrounding differences is not their immutability but rather the moral and political salience we accord such differences. Simple experiments in social identity theory—and a conversation with an incensed 12-year old—demonstrate that the psychological process by which differences between people and groups become deemed ethically and politically relevant is totally socially constructed and hence can be restructured in a fashion that leads to more tolerant treatment of those judged different.

Type
Features
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We wish to thank Chloe Lampros-Monroe and Nicole Herbert-Whiting for their insights into social science. We thank Jim Herbert for being “art history” not German.

References

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Baldwin, David, ed. 1993. Neorealism and Neoliberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel. 1990. Group Beliefs: A Conception for Analyzing Group Structure, Process, and Behavior. New York: Spring-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel, and Teichman, Yona. 2005. Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflicts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, William, Johnson, Marcia, Raye, Carol, Gatenby, Chris, Gore, John, and Banaji, Mahzarin. 2004. “Separable Neural Components in the Processing of Black and White Faces.” Psychological Science 15 (12): 806–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fiske, Susan, Xu, Juan, Cuddy, Amy, and Glick, Peter. 1999. “(Dis)respecting versus (Dis)liking: Status and Interdependence Predict Ambivalent Stereotypes of Competence and Warmth.” Journal of Social Issues 55 (3): 473–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujii, L. 2006. “Genocide.” Paper presented at the UCI Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, Irvine, CA.Google Scholar
Hart, Allen J., Whalen, Paul J., Shin, Lisa M., McInerney, Sean C., Fischer, Hakan, Rauch, Scott L.. 2000. Differential Response in the Human Amygdala to Racial Out-Group vs. In-Group Face Stimuli.” Neuroreport 11 (11): 2351–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Kareem, and Fredrickson, Barbara. 2005. “We All Look the Same to Me: Positive Emotions Eliminate the Own Race Bias in Face Recognition.” Psychological Science 16 (11): 875–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kurzban, Robert, Tooby, John, and Cosmides, Leda. 2001. “Can Race Be Erased? Coalitional Computation and Social Categorization.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (26): 15387–392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lijphart, Arendt. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. When Victims Become Killers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Monroe, Kristen R. 2004. The Hand of Compassion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Monroe, Kristen R. 2008. “Cracking the Code of Genocide: The Moral Psychology of Rescuers, Bystanders, and Nazis during the Holocaust.” Political Psychology 29 (October): 699736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohman, Arne, and Mineka, Susan. 2001. “Fears, Phobias and Preparedness: Toward an Evolved Module of Fear and Fear Learning.” Psychological Review 108 (3): 483522.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oxley, Douglas R., Smith, Kevin B., Alford, John R., Hibbing, Matthew V., Miller, Jennifer L., Scalora, Mario, Hatemi, Peter K., and Hibbing, John R.. 2008. “Political Attitudes Are Predicted by Physiological Traits.” Science 321 (September 19): 1667–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, Roger D. 2002. Understanding Ethnic Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phelps, Elizabeth, O'Connor, Kevin, Gatenby, Christopher, Gore, John, Grillon, Christian, and Davis, Michael. 2001. “Activation of the Left Amygdala to a Cognitive Representation of Fear.” Nature Neuroscience 4: 437–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Staub, Ervin. 1992. The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1970. “Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination.” Scientific American 223: 96102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1981. “Human Groups and Social Categories.” Studies in Social Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, and Turner, John. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. Austin, William G. and Worchel, Stephen. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole, 94109.Google Scholar
Turner, J. C. 1982. “Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group.” In Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, ed. Tajfel, H.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van den Bos, Wouter, McClure, Samuel M., Harris, Lasana T., Fiske, Susan T., Cohen, Jonathan D.. 2007. “Dissociating Affective Evaluation and Social Cognitive Processes in the Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex.” Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 7 (4): 337–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed