What makes some persons more prejudiced than others? Modeling the role of social dominance, empathy, social desirability, and gender

In English Structural equation modeling on questionnaire data showed that different kinds of prejudice (concerning sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, and impaired develop­ment) can be represented as a general prejudice factor. Specific variability related to classical and modern prejudice only increased model fit marginally. Several causal models of the relation between key individual difference variables and prejudice were tested. Social dominance orientation had a strong, empathy a moderate, and social desirability a comparably weaker direct effect on generalized prejudice. The effects of participant gender on the generalized prejudice factor, where the men scored higher, were almost completely mediated by empathy. The importance of empathy in causal models of prejudice, and of indirect measurement of prejudice, is discussed.