The Achievement Motive and Differential Occupational Mobility in the United States

Abstract

group to appear ethnocentric entails measurable costs in intergroup relations. Socially dominant groups do not escape this dilemma but rather are particularly subject to being penalized for the appearance of ethnocentric behavior. Perhaps groups which are patently subject to discrimination (i.e., are not dominant) are thus in a position to strive for better treatment without thereby seeming ethnocentric to the same degree as groups which are already well off and seeking to consolidate or increase their advantages. The minority defense agencies often seem to base their policies (quite understandably) on the assumption that the roots of prejudice lie in majority pathology or majority ignorance. A favorite technique for striving for better treatment for a minority is to publicize its virtues and accomplishments, to prove that it is not inferior to the majority at whose hands it suffers discrimination.22 However true such publicity may be, the present study suggests that its impact on majority attitudes may often be just the opposite of what is intended. If such publicity creates the impression that the minority being defended is ethnocentric, this impression might actually aggravate majority antipathy. The further possibility that such publicity might tend to increase the actual ethnocentrism of the minority in question, as well as its apparent ethnocentrism, deserves investigation too. The self-fulfilling prophecy may cut both ways.