Values and prejudice: Predictors of attitudes towards Australian Aborigines

Abstract

This study related prejudice towards Australian Aborigines to value types assessed by the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO). One hundred and forty-eight students in Adelaide, South Australia, completed a Modern Racism Scale adapted for Australian Aborigines, the SVS, the RWA Scale, and the SDO Scale. We predicted that prejudice would be positively related to the importance of self-enhancement and conservation values from the SVS such as power and security and negatively related to the importance of self-transcendence values such as universalism and benevolence. Relations between the prejudice measures and RWA and SDO were also expected to reflect their degree of overlap with discrete value types from the SVS. These predictions were supported. Results were discussed in relation to the importance of considering how prejudice relates to a person's specific value priorities as well as to more general value variables such as RWA and SDO.