Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression

This volume focuses on two questions: why do people from one social group oppress and discriminate against people from other groups? and why is this oppression so mind numbingly difficult to eliminate? The answers to these questions are framed using the conceptual framework of social dominance theory. Social dominance theory argues that the major forms of intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are all basically derived from the basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. In essence, social dominance theory presumes that, beneath major and sometimes profound difference between different human societies, there is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.

• One of the few books to focus on race/ethnic relations from a cross-cultural perspective • Only book describing Sidanius’s important social dominance theory

Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations; 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis; Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation; 4. Let’s both agree that you’re really stupid: the power of consensual ideology; Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I’ll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets; 6. They’re just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market; 7. They’re just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care; 8. The more of ‘them’ in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system; Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior; 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy; 11. Epilogue.

\'Tightly and scientifically written, the book is an excellent resource for scholars.\' South African Journal of Psychology