Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Projecting Power
Search
Search
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Sidanius Pratto 1999
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Special pages
Page information
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Schematic Overview of Social Dominance Theory=== *The orientation towards group-based social hierarchy is called '''social dominance orientation (SDO)'''. ====Aggregated Individual Discrimination==== *The aggregation (over time) of individual acts of discrimination by one person against another. Over time, these contribute to differences in power between social groups. **Ex. not promoting someone because they are a woman or firing someone because they are trans ====Aggregated Institutional Discrimination==== *Rules and procedures of institutions that create power differences between groups. **Ex. Redlining, the Dred Scott ruling, making it harder to immigrate from certain countries to the United States ====Systematic Terror==== *“The use of violent threats or violence disproportionately directed towards subordinates” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2). Used to maintain power imbalance and ensure deference of subordinates to dominants. **Ex. police brutality against Black americans (state violence), violence against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic *Three forms of '''systematic terror''': **'''official terror''': violence perpetrated by the state in a public capacity (ex. public hangings of enemies of the state, disproportionate use of death penalty against Black Americans), mass arrest of protestors **'''semiofficial terror''': violence carried out by the state (or organs of the state) covertly (ex. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and illegal detention) **'''unofficial terror''': violence or threats of violence by private individuals from dominants against subordinates. Does not have state sanction but often does have participation or approval of security forces (ex. Lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan). *In democratic societies, dominants in politics will have to justify their brutality (the authors argue). So much of the terror occurs covertly or unofficially. No such subtlety is required in authoritarian regimes. ====Behavioral Asymmetry==== *SDT, unlike Marxism and other theories, describes the way subordinates participate in their own subordination. However, it does not deny dominant groups oppress subordinate groups. *Four types of '''behavioral asymmetry''': **'''Asymmetrical ingroup bias''': Even if (across cultures) individuals tend to show ingroup bias (ex. White Americans wanting to protect the interests of White Americans over other groups or Indian Americans wanting to protect the interests of Indian Americans over other groups), ''some groups will have more ingroup biases than others''. ***Dominant groups will show greater ingroup bias than subordinate groups. **'''Outgroup favoritism or deference''': Special case of asymmetric ingroup bias where subordinates favor dominants over their ingroup members (ex. colorism preferring whites over Indians in Indian communities; Uncle Tom-ing behavior of some Black Americans to white Americans). *'''Self-debilitation''': Subordinates show more self-destructive behaviors than dominants. Authors argue this is often consistent with negative stereotypes of subordinates which serve as behavioral scripts and self-fulling prophecies. *'''Ideological asymmetry''': social policies chosen by dominants are more likely to be '''driven by social dominance values'''. Dominants more likely to support HE social ideologies. Subordinates more likely to support HA social ideologies. *Behavioral asymmetry, the authors argue, show us the cooperative way intergroup oppression continues. ====Legitimizing Myths==== *“Attitudes, values, beliefs, stereotypes, and ideologies that provide moral and intellectual justifications for the social practices that distribute social value within the social system” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2). Abbreviated LM. *LMs have two independent characteristics: **'''Functional type''': Does a particular LM justify group-based social INEQUALITY or EQUALITY? ***'''Hierarchy-enhancing LMs'''': LMs that justify group-based social inequality ****Ex. divine right of kings, manifest destiny, sexism ****Authors assert a lot of assumptions of political conservatism fall into this category (ex. individual responsibility over social responsibility) ***'''Hierarchy-attenuating LMs''': LMs that support greater levels of group-based equality ****Ex. universal rights of man, humanism **'''Potency''': Does an LM help “promote, maintain, or overthrow a given group-based hierarchy?” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2). They have four factors: ***'''Consensuality''': The degree to which LMs are shared across the power continuum in both dominant and subordinate groups. ****Ex. The belief that women were subservient to men was a shared belief across sexes in Victorian England. ***'''Embeddedness''': How anchored an LM is in other parts of culture or ideology. ****Ex. An embedded LM like anti-Blackness is well entrenched in U.S. culture. The caste system in Indian culture. ***'''Certainty''': Does an LM appear to have “a high degree of moral, religious, or scientific certainty, or truth?” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2) ****Ex. The way white supremacy was bolstered by racist scientific research in 19th century Western Europe ***'''Mediational strength''': Does an LM serve as a link between the group-based social hierarchy and HE or HA policies? ****Ex. The belief that one is responsible for their own economic reality and can achieve success through hard work alone can funnel into disapproval of social safety net policies in the U.S. This increases group inequality. ====The Nature of Social Dominance Orientation==== *'''Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)''': “the degree to which individuals desire and support group-based hierarchy and the domination of “inferior” groups by “superior” groups” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2). *SDO is affected by four factors: **One’s membership in a group and strength of identification in that membership ***We should expect dominants or those who identify with dominants have higher SDO than subordinates or those who identify with subordinates. **Socialization factors (ex. Education, faith, experience in war) ***People are born with different temperamental dispositions ****The more empathy you have, the less SDO **Gender (male, female) ***'''Invariance hypothesis''': Men will have higher SDO than women ***This is NOT JUST because men occupy dominant social roles. The authors argue there are reasons independent of this.
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Projecting Power may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Projecting Power:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Toggle limited content width