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A Hypothesis Regarding the Origins of Ethnic Discrimination

BRADFORD CORNELL

University of California, Los Angeles

This article develops an explanation for ethnic discrimination based on what can be called "social decoding." It is hypothesized that humans have developed unique cognitive skills for discerning situations in which others will behave in a self-interested opportunistic fashion. However, these cognitive skills, like the human ability to acquire language, are effectuated by environmental programming. Consequently, people will be able to decode accurately only when dealing with others of similar type. From this it follows that when selecting the "best" candidate from several populations each of which contain a large number of people, an individual will almost certainly end up choosing someone from the population that she or he can more accurately decode. Therefore, assuming that a common ethnic background is associated with more accurate decoding, people will appear to discriminate in favor of others who are ethnically similar. Ironically, this "discrimination" arises because people cannot discriminate as accurately when dealing with members of a dissimilar population.

Rationality and Society, Vol. 7, No. 1, 4-30 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/1043463195007001002
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