Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
Gordon AllportWe cannot know the young child's personality by studying his systems of interest, for his attention is as yet too labile, his reactions impulsive, and interests unformed. From adolescence onward, however, the surest clue to personality is the hierarchy of interests, including the loves and loyalties of adult life.
Gordon AllportMany studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and "patriotism" . . . Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots.
Gordon AllportThere is a story of an Oxford student who once remarked, "I despise all Americans, but have never met one I didn't like."
Gordon AllportThe outlines of the needed psychology of becoming can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.
Gordon AllportThe dog [in Pavlov's experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
Gordon Allport