Conference on Social Psychology of Prejudice, Seattle, Washington, August 11 - 12, 2000

University Of Kansas Center For Research Inc, Lawrence KS

Investigators

Abstract

In some fields of science, new and beginning investigators spend little time with older research articles, books, or work that was done more than a few decades in the past. This strategy may pay off in the short run for the individual scientist, who must publish new research, obtain grants, and establish a reputation. But this strategy is bad for the field as a whole, because excellent historical ideas, research, and theory can be overlooked or reinvented. This problem is compounded by the fact that many ideas, research techniques, and experimental manipulations contain a certain amount of subtle or even tacit knowledge that is not communicated in research reports. This "loss of the past" for contemporary research is a significant problem for the social psychology of prejudice. Because research on prejudice is strongly affected by current events, social history and the scientific zeitgeist, the kinds of research carried out during and following WWII and the Holocaust, the days of Jim Crow, the response to Brown v. Board of Education, and South African apartheid had a different flavor and focus than research found in contemporary journals. It may be that research and theory has changed toward more subtle manifestations of prejudice because scientists have continued to base theoretical and empirical developments upon research on race and gender prejudices - prejudices that have lost much of their social acceptability in the past few decades. But the earlier ideas and theories have direct relevance to the problems of prejudice today, both in terms of scientific theory and of practical application. As a partial remedy for this, a conference will be held on the psychology of prejudice, where senior and very well-established researchers can interact with junior investigators. Because face-to-face interaction, over the course of several days, is the best way to have a sustained and meaningful exchange of ideas and information, a small conference will bring scholars at several levels together for a few days, to exchange ideas, to share history, and to encourage a new generation of scholars in the study of prejudice.