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striction of their potentialities for self-development.20 Being con
stantly told that they are inferior, members of minority groups
frequently develop an image of themselves that closely resembles
that held by the dominant group, and consequently fulfill the expecta
tions of the dominant group by actually becoming inferior. This often
leads to self-hatred and the rejection of one’s own group. These at
titudes in turn frequently find expression, on the one hand, in anti
social action that is directed against one’s own group and, on the
other hand, in similar action directed against the dominant group. In
any case, the underlying feelings of inferiority and humiliation greatly
affect one’s level of aspiration, his capacity to learn, and his capacity
to relate himself to others in all kinds of interpersonal situations. In
all of these ways the social ills which result from prejudice and dis
crimination inevitably lower the level of well-being of the community
as a whole.21
Although less obvious than the effects upon the members of minor
ity groups, the effects of discrimination upon members of the dominant
group are, both from the religious and from the psychiatric points of
view, equally serious. The imposition of minority status upon another
group leads to the development of an unrealistic feeling of superior
personal worth in the members of the dominant group. This feeling of
superior worth rests basically upon the artificial down-grading of the
minority group. Although the latter is held to be inferior by heredity,
the dominant group usually deems it necessary to reenforce this al
leged inferiority by numerous means of social control—legal, eco
nomic, educational, and religious—in order to keep the minority
group inferior. For the dominant group the result of this effort is
an uneasy and hollow sense of superiority which is frequently shot
through with feelings of anxiety and guilt. The need to justify the
discriminatory treatment of an entire group frequently leads to a
reaffirmation and entrenchment of the myth of racial superiority. In
this way reality is further distorted, and it becomes increasingly diffi
cult to deal constructively with the genuine needs of each racial or
ethnic group. Not only is the facing of the basic problems involved
in race relations impeded by this process, but the generalized issue of
race itself is often used as a screen to avoid the facing of other social
20Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry,
Report No. 37: Psychiatric
Aspects of School Desegregation,
New York, 1957, p. 10. Cf. Allport,
op. cit.t
ch. 9.
421Psychiatric Aspects of School Desegregation,
p. 11.
Race Relations
357