One of my main characters in my current work of fiction is a Jewish woman. Part of the reason I chose to have a Jewish protagonist is because, I’m sad to say, I’ve never really understood anti-semitism. Clearly, it can be very powerful. But how does it arise? Where does it come from? I found the following New York Times article to be interesting and really helpful in attempting to find the answer to these question.
The Psychology of Anti-Semitism
Why is prejudice against Jewish people so often expressed in sudden waves of virulent, even exterminatory attacks?
By Amy Cuddy
Dr. Cuddy is a social psychologist.
Nov. 3, 2018
Research shows that a widespread stereotype of Jewish people expresses resentment but also grudging respect.CreditCreditFlip Schulke/Corbis, via Getty Images
After the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which a white supremacist shot to death 11 people while screaming, “All Jews must die,” a Jewish girl in New York sent an anguished note to her mother. “I know I shouldn’t feel like I don’t have an answer to this question,” she wrote in a text message that was later shared on social media. “But why do people hate us?”
Her bafflement was understandable. Many people, of course, favor the groups they belong to and dislike groups they don’t belong to; that is the regrettable foundation of prejudice. But not all groups are disliked the same way: Why are some groups (such as homeless people) dismissed or neglected in a relatively steady stream of scorn, while other groups (such as Jewish people) are subjected to sudden waves of virulent, even exterminatory attacks?
For many decades psychologists conceived of prejudice as a one-dimensional antipathy: People love their “in-groups” and hate “out-groups.” But this us-versus-them approach failed to account for prejudice’s real-world complexities.
To better understand the various ways in which bigotry manifests, the psychologists Susan Fiske, Peter Glick and I developed a new theory of prejudice, one that focuses on the content of stereotypes of out-groups. We have found that how an out-group is stereotyped predicts how the prejudice against it gets expressed. This theory — tested over more than 20 years by us and others in hundreds of studies, with tens of thousands of participants, across many cultures — helps explain why anti-Semitism often erupts in such violent bursts.
Our research has consistently found that people stereotype most groups not as singularly good or bad; instead, they classify them along two dimensions, which we call “warmth” and “competence.” Insofar as a group is seen as good-natured, sincere and trustworthy, it is considered warm; insofar as it is seen as lacking those qualities, it is considered cold. Likewise, if a group is seen as ambitious, intelligent and skillful, it is considered competent; if it is seen as lacking those qualities, it is considered incompetent.
These stereotypes, needless to say, don’t seem to result from careful observation of the groups in question. On the contrary, they appear to be inferences drawn from a group’s position in society. People assume that socioeconomically successful groups must be competent and that disadvantaged groups must be incompetent. Likewise, groups that are viewed as competitors — for status, for resources — get stereotyped as cold, whereas groups that are viewed as allies get stereotyped as warm.
In-groups and “cultural reference” groups (the middle class and Christians are common examples in the United States) are stereotyped as warm and competent — a wholly positive category. In stark contrast, groups on society’s margins who are blamed for their plight and viewed as a drain on resources (common examples include homeless people and drug addicts) are stereotyped as cold and incompetent — a wholly negative category. Discrimination against groups stereotyped in this way is typically expressed through disregard, stigmatizing and ostracizing.
Most groups we have studied, however, garner ambivalent stereotypes: either warm but incompetent, or competent but cold. They are not stereotyped as simply good or bad. And this leads to more subtle or complex patterns of discrimination.
Consider the group often described by our research participants as “the elderly.” In virtually all of our studies, older people are stereotyped as warm but incompetent. Their perceived warmth elicits affection and support, while their perceived incompetence elicits disrespect and neglect. People feel a sort of condescending compassion and pity toward them. This leads to paternalistic and patronizing treatment, such as speaking unnecessarily slowly and in an overly endearing manner. (Another group commonly stereotyped as warm but incompetent are people with disabilities.)
In our research, a widespread stereotype of Jewish people, like that of other socioeconomically successful minorities such as Asian-Americans, falls in the competent-but-cold quadrant. Groups in this quadrant elicit respect but also resentment for their success. We call this “envious prejudice.”
How envious prejudice operates turns out to depend on how stable the world feels. As has been demonstrated in lab experiments, field studies and historical analyses, if a society, its economy and its government are seen as secure, people will look favorably on groups that are stereotyped as competent but cold, because their perceived competence is valued. When times are good, the resentment component of “envious prejudice” takes a back seat.
But when times get tough, envious prejudices can ignite. Societal breakdown, harsh economies or political turmoil can activate resentment toward high-status minorities, who are seen as competitors for limited resources or even dangerous enemies. The stereotyped competence of such groups, when they are suspected or accused of “cold” ill will, suddenly represents a serious threat. Envy toward these groups becomes volatile, mutating into anger and spurring the most extreme forms of discrimination — intentional harm and even annihilation.
In the wake of Germany’s defeat in World War I and the subsequent economic crisis, Jewish people were cast as powerful, manipulative agents of disaster. In the chaos of 1970s Cambodia, professionals and intellectuals were imprisoned and murdered en masse, often by neighbors whom they had socialized with or done business with just weeks before. In Rwanda in the 1990s, the Tutsi, another high-status minority group, were blamed for the country’s severe economic problems and systematically slaughtered by their compatriots in a mere three months.
“Allies” in secure times, “enemies” in insecure times, high-status minority groups can swiftly become the victims of scapegoating, perceived and portrayed as scheming architects of society’s hardships who have to be contained or eliminated. “To be effective at explaining a crisis,” my collaborator Peter Glick has written, “scapegoat ideologies must necessarily exaggerate the perceived competence of the scapegoated group.” Accordingly, a “competent and powerful ‘enemy’ cannot be controlled, but must be destroyed, psychologically justifying genocidal attacks as ‘self-defense’ against an implacable foe.”
Under the wrong circumstances, the “competent but cold” stereotype — not despite but because of its positive component — can become a dangerous weapon of discrimination and destruction.