The anticipated belief differences theory of prejudice: Analysis and evaluation

The main supporting evidence for Rokeach's theory of prejudice (the Anticipated Belief Differences Theory of Prejudice) comes from the strong belief effects obtained in a simple Race/Belief manipulation. Analysis shows that the theory is unfalsifiable with this paradigm and is therefore neither tested nor confirmed by the many studies purporting to do so. The Belief‐undefined/Belief‐partially‐defined manipulation of Stein, Hardyck and Smith (1965) does test the theory. However, these authors' conclusion that favourable evidence was obtained is incorrect owing to the use of an inappropriate statistic. Although race effects can be incorporated within a theory of belief prejudice it is equally possible to incorporate belief effects within any theory of prejudice which is contingent on an initial categorization into in‐group and out‐group. An empirical distinction between Rokeach's theory and other theories of prejudice can be made using a Belief‐undefined/Belief‐partially‐defined manipulation. Finally the theoretical adequacy of Rokeach's theory is discussed in terms of more general characteristics of prejudice.