Causes of Prejudice

According to Parrillo, the socialization process is where external influences help to develop an individual's belief system. This could be a teacher or parent to a child, or simply the attitude of a culture on any individual.

I believe that many prejudices are instilled this way. A white 4-year-old will gladly approach a black 4-year-old on the playground, unless otherwise taught. The two will be perfectly happy to play with each other until the parents call them back. Young children rarely seem to be affected by racial prejudices, I think. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the prejudices are instilled by adults or social influences. As children, they have not yet experienced the economic competitions or anxieties that cause frustrations typically leading to scape-goating. I think it becomes a cycle, though: These 4-year-olds grow up to find each other as scape goats, but their prejudices become habit, and their children learn from them to hate the other.

The socialization process seems more to be a vessel for the perpetuation of the prejudice, not its cause. There would have to have been a trigger to spark the initial hate, but then that hate would become a value or social norm. Once a hate has become a social norm, then people learn their prejudices through external influences: students from teachers, children from parents, workers from their colleagues.