Psychoanalytic Theory and Social Attitudes

Psychoanalytic theory describes the mechanisms of ego defense which serve to protect the individual against external and internal threat. Many attitudes are acquired and maintained in the service of such mechanisms. Where people cannot escape from threatening forces from without, they will often incorporate the hostile forces and identify with the aggressor, as in the case of some members of a minority group taking on the prejudices of the majority toward them. Or people will maintain old attitudes by denying and distorting the reality of existing dangers. Threatening internal impulses may be repressed and projected onto others, or sometimes may lead to the appearance of attitudes directly opposed to the repressed wishes.