A Justification–Suppression Model of the Expression and Experience of Prejudice Christian S. Crandall and Amy Eshleman University of Kansas The authors propose a justification–suppression model (JSM), which characterizes the processes that lead to prejudice expression and the experience of one’s own prejudice. They suggest that “genuine” prejudices are not directly expressed but are restrained by beliefs, values, and norms that suppress them. Prejudices are expressed when justifications (e.g., attributions, ideologies, stereotypes) release sup- pressed prejudices. The same process accounts for which prejudices are accepted into the self-concept. The JSM is used to organize the prejudice literature, and many empirical findings are recharacterized as factors affecting suppression or justification, rather than directly affecting genuine prejudice. The authors discuss the implications of the JSM for several topics, including prejudice measurement, ambivalence, and the distinction between prejudice and its expression. I do not ask for final honesty, Since none can say, “This is my motive, this is me.” —Donald Hall, “A Friend Revisited” The expression of prejudice is marked by a deep conflict be- tween a desire to express an emotion and, at the same time, to maintain values and self-concepts that conflict with prejudice. In this article, we examine the nature of this conflict and develop a general framework for understanding how this conflict can lead to the expression of prejudice. The scientific literature on the psy- chology of prejudice is long and large, but the theories and studies tend to be about specific problems and prejudices, not the phe- nomenon of prejudice. We develop the justification–suppression model (JSM) to encompass the best known and empirically sup- ported theories, incorporating many of their common elements. The goal of the JSM is to provide an integrative framework that helps to organize a range of previous studies and theories into a coherent review and analysis. We provide a simple structure for conceptualizing the process of prejudice expression and the expe- rience of prejudice; this structure leads to several hypotheses about the expression and suppression of prejudice. Definition of Prejudice We define prejudice as a negative evaluation of a social group or a negative evaluation of an individual that is significantly based on the individual’s group membership. This simple and broad definition differs from other definitions in a number of ways. Allport (1954) argued that a prejudice must be “unfounded”; it must “lack basis in fact” (p. 7). After 43 pages of discussion on determining whether a prejudice has a basis in fact, he concluded that it is a nearly hopeless task to establish when prejudice is rational or justified: “The study of groups, so far as it has gone, does not permit us to say that hostility toward a group is to any appreciable extent based on ‘well-deserved reputation’ ” (Allport, 1954, p. 125). With regard to our theoretical assumptions, we do not define prejudice as “irrational,” because it is virtually impossible to ascertain rationality (see Brown, 1995). A more important reason to avoid the issue of rationality is, we argue, that the psychological processes that lead to prejudice and its expression are identical for “rational” and “irrational” prejudices. Regardless of their founda- tion in fact—whether they are complete fantasies, based on a kernel of truth, the whole cob, or an entire silo of truth—the psychological processes of prejudice do not depend on a hypothet- ical “objective” observer’s evaluation of accuracy. The basic unit in a psychological theory should be a psycho- logical process, and it is the phenomenological reality of the perceiver that is the explanandum of psychological theory, not the meta-analytic results of carefully conceived social researches. As such, we eschew the psychologically false dichotomy of rational– irrational in our definition of prejudice. Although “positive prejudice” may exist, we emphasize nega- tive prejudice for three reasons. First, negative prejudice is more harmful, damaging, and disruptive to social interaction and social justice (Brown, 1995; J. M. Jones, 1997). Second, the empirical literature on positive prejudice toward out-groups is scanty. Third and most important, our model describes the process by which an underlying prejudice becomes experienced and expressed. A pos- itive prejudice is likely to be expressed and experienced in its Christian S. Crandall and Amy Eshleman, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas. Amy Eshleman is now at the Department of Psychology, Wagner College. We thank Monica Biernat, Tom Britt, Alan Lambert, Benoit Monin, Margo Monteith, David Myers, Laurie O’Brien, Michael Schmitt, and Linda Skitka for their helpful discussions on an earlier version of this article; Michael Finger and Dan Batson for discussion of Figure 1; and Alice Eagly and Norbert Schwarz for discussions on the definition of prejudice. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christian S. Crandall, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, 1415 Jay- hawk Boulevard, Lawrence, Kansas 66045. E-mail: crandall@ku.edu Psychological Bulletin Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2003, Vol. 129, No. 3, 414 – 446 0033-2909/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.414 414