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 suppressed 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.

The authors studied social norms and prejudice using M. Sherif and C. W. Sherif's (1953) group norm theory of attitudes. In 7 studies (N = 1,504), social norms were measured and manipulated to examine their effects on prejudice; both normatively proscribed and normatively prescribed forms of prejudice were included. The public expression of prejudice toward 105 social groups was very highly correlated with social approval of that expression. Participants closely adhere to social norms when expressing prejudice, evaluating scenarios of discrimination, and reacting to hostile jokes. The authors reconceptualized the source of motivation to suppress prejudice in terms of identifying with new reference groups and adapting oneself to fit new norms. Suppression scales seem to measure patterns of concern about group norms rather than personal commitments to reducing prejudice; high suppressors are strong norm followers. Compared with low suppressors, high suppressors follow normative rules more closely and are more strongly influenced by shifts in local social norms. There is much value in continuing the study of normative influence and self-adaptation to social norms, particularly in terms of the group norm theory of attitudes.

Guided by theory on stigma, a Likert‐type scale was developed to measure 7 factors of attitudes toward people with mental illness: interpersonal anxiety, relationship disruption, poor hygiene, visibility, treatability, professional efficacy, and recovery. The scale was validated among college students and community members, measuring attitudes toward people with mental illness, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. In a second application, college students completed the scale from their own perspective, then from an imagined perspective of someone with mental illness, while psychiatric patients completed the scale from their own perspective, then from an imagined viewpoint of someone without mental illness. Psychiatric patients assumed that they were stigmatized to a greater extent than was admitted by the student sample.

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It was proposed that (a) religious belief has implications for properties of the self-concept and that (b) the relationship between religious belief and psychological adjustment can be understood in self-theoretical terms. In two studies ( Ns = 145, 52) religious belief strength was associated with more positive and certain self-conceptions, and the influence of religiousness on the self-concept was evident in multiple self-knowledge domains. The results also demonstrated that self-concept positivity partially mediated the relationship between religious belief and psychological adjustment. In addition, self-concept and coping models of the association of religiousness and adjustment were compared. The results indicated that religious belief had a small, positive indirect effect on adjustment through self-concept positivity and a larger but negative indirect effect through a measure of God-related control attributions. Theoretical links between religious belief and the self-concept are discussed.

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