Abstract

BLOOM, Jill Betz. Contemporary conceptualizations of prejudice: a psychoanalytic perspective. Lat. Am. j. fundam. psychopathol. on line [online]. 2008, vol.5, n.1, pp. 32-43. ISSN 1677-0358.

This paper first addresses the history of the study of intolerance, or prejudice, in the in the social psychologyof the United States Secondly, the article locates the study of prejudice in American social history. Historicizing prejudice illustrates the specific historical and cultural dimensions of prejudice and, specifically, reveals the irrational and unconscious modern forms of prejudice, conceptualizations that are undertheorized in social psychology. A psychoanalytic depth analysis is presented, one that attempts to broaden both the conceptualization of prejudice and its context to include the social cultural world and the world of the unconscious. In this respect a distinction is made between the conceptualization of prejudice as a rational, universal occurrence, and "modern" forms of irrational prejudice, that are revealed to be more "symptom" of cultural anxieties than their cause.

Keywords : American History; Intolerance; Prejudice; Psychoanalysis; Social History.

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