The perspective of social cognition describes the cognitive processes of prejudice (e.g. 1 SOCIAL COGNITION AND FOLK-ANTHROPOLOGY: TWO PERSPECTIVES ON PREJUDICE They have also led to the perception of dangerous relationships between the majority and the minorities and have guided state policies against the latter.
These lay conceptions about the human race contributed to the construction of a whole folk-anthropology where the ethnic and racial prejudices against these minorities are anchored. They are beliefs rooted in longstanding common-sense traditions, closely related to an amalgam of the ‘scientific’ reasoning of theology, philosophy, anthropology, biology, and psychology about the human race who belongs and who does not, who is the best or the worst prototype, and who is superior or inferior. The purpose of this text is to show how prejudices against minorities persecuted in the West (Jews, gypsies, natives, and black people) are neither mere cognitive biases of the individual, nor mere limitations of information processing.
