The Ideological Molds of Paternalism and Conflict

The prevailing approaches to intergroup attitudes and group consciousness anticipate “consistency" in people’s attitudes as the emblem of coherence, constraint, and crystallization in the way people think about their relations with another group. In particular, the policy dispositions of dominant group members toward subordinates should be a direct reflection of how positive or negative their feelings are toward subordinates. The latter, in turn, are thought more likely to assert their political rights when they feel hostile toward those who assert dominance over them. The only "inconsistent” attitude structure that has been the object of sustained scholarly attention is tolerance, that