Anti-Jewish Prejudice in Contemporary Hungary: A Socio-Psychological Causal Model

Predictions from three general approaches to prejudice—personality, social learning and group-conflict—have been examined on a sample of Hungarian youth and their parents. The sample consisted of 400 randomly selected college students and their parents from two Hungarian cities (total N=800). The questionnaire included, among others, an antisemitism scale, authoritarianism scale, and socio-demographic variables. Socio-psychological causal model was constructed using univariate recursive regression graph methodology. The results indicated that students' antisemitism is directly related only to personality (authoritarianism) and to parents' antisemitism. Students' authoritarianism is related to parents' authoritarianism and family socio-economic status (as indicated by parents' income and education). Parents' antisemitism is related to their own authoritarian tendencies and income, while parents' authoritarianism is primarily related to their educational background. It is concluded that the results primarily support personality approach to prejudice as represented by Adorno et al.' work (1950), and socialization approach. Group-conflict approach received ambiguous support in the same way as predictions from this approach concerning individual differences in prejudice are ambiguous.