---
title: "Gordon Allport | Social Psychology"
description: "Gordon Allport shaped Social Psychology by explaining prejudice, personality, and contact between groups. His ideas help you read causes of bias in real cases."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/social-psychology/key-terms/gordon-allport"
type: "key-term"
subject: "Social Psychology"
unit: "Unit 9"
---

# Gordon Allport | Social Psychology

## Definition

Gordon Allport was a major Social Psychology thinker who studied prejudice, personality, and how intergroup contact can reduce bias. He is best known for The Nature of Prejudice and the contact hypothesis.

## What It Is

Gordon Allport is a foundational Social Psychology figure whose name comes up whenever you study prejudice, attitudes, and personality. In this course, he is most often linked to the idea that prejudice is not just a random dislike of a group. It grows out of specific social and cognitive forces, and it can also be reduced under the right conditions.

Allport is especially known for treating prejudice as something that can be studied systematically. Instead of just describing bias as a bad attitude, he broke it into patterns, causes, and changes over time. That shift matters in Social Psychology because it turns prejudice into a topic you can analyze, not just label.

One of Allport’s biggest contributions is his work on intergroup contact. He argued that contact between groups can reduce prejudice, but not automatically. The contact has to happen in conditions that make people less defensive, such as equal status, shared goals, cooperation, and support from the wider environment. If those conditions are missing, contact can leave stereotypes untouched or even make tension worse.

Allport also connected prejudice to the way people think about the world. Bias can come from emotion, habit, social learning, and the need to sort people into categories quickly. That fits the course’s larger focus on social perception, because you are often looking at how people interpret others through shortcuts, group identity, and prior beliefs.

His book, The Nature of Prejudice, gave Social Psychology a classic framework for understanding why prejudice persists and how it might change. You do not need to memorize every page of it, but you do need to recognize Allport when a question asks about the origins of prejudice or why direct contact between groups might lower bias.

Allport is also tied to personality psychology, especially his idea of functional autonomy. That idea says a behavior or attitude can outgrow its original motive. In prejudice, that means a bias can survive even after the original reason for it is gone, which helps explain why prejudice is often stubborn and why changing it takes more than just giving people facts.

## Why It Matters

Allport matters because he gives Social Psychology a practical way to explain prejudice instead of treating it like a vague personal flaw. When a class question asks why one group distrusts another, Allport helps you look for social conditions, learned attitudes, and the quality of group contact rather than assuming the answer is just prejudice in the abstract.

His ideas also connect directly to real social situations. If two groups compete over jobs, housing, status, or school resources, prejudice can harden. If those same groups are put into structured cooperation with equal standing and a shared goal, bias may weaken. That is a very common move in Social Psychology, where the question is not only what people feel, but what settings make those feelings stronger or weaker.

Allport is useful in essays and short-answer responses because he gives you a clean explanation for both the cause and reduction of prejudice. You can use him to discuss stereotypes, intergroup relations, or why simple exposure is not always enough to change attitudes. He also connects to later topics like social identity and institutional discrimination, since personal bias does not form in a vacuum.

## Connections

### Prejudice

Allport is closely tied to prejudice because he studied it directly and treated it as a social attitude that can be explained, measured, and changed. If you are identifying causes of bias, his work gives you language for how prejudice forms from emotion, learning, and group contact. He is one of the main names to know in this topic.

### [Contact Hypothesis](/social-psychology/key-terms/contact-hypothesis)

This is Allport’s best-known idea for reducing prejudice. The basic claim is that contact between groups can lower bias, but only under certain conditions, like equal status and cooperation. If a question describes two groups working together and attitudes improving, Allport’s contact hypothesis is often the best fit.

### Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory explains prejudice by focusing on in-groups and out-groups, while Allport focuses more on contact and the social conditions that shape attitudes. They connect because both show that bias is tied to group membership, not just individual personality. One helps explain why prejudice forms, and the other helps explain how it might be reduced.

### [Institutional Discrimination](/social-psychology/key-terms/institutional-discrimination)

Allport focused on prejudice as an attitude and social pattern, while institutional discrimination looks at unfair treatment built into systems and policies. They belong together because prejudice can feed discriminatory systems, and discriminatory systems can reinforce prejudice. If a scenario involves both personal bias and unequal rules, these terms often appear side by side.

## On the AP Exam

A quiz item or short response may give you a scenario about two groups with tension and ask which psychologist’s idea fits best. If the case shows prejudice easing after cooperative contact under equal conditions, Allport is the name to use. If the prompt asks why stereotypes can persist even after the original situation changes, you can bring in his idea of functional autonomy.

You may also see Allport in a compare-and-contrast question with other prejudice theories. The move is to identify whether the scenario is about group conflict, social identity, or contact between groups, then explain how Allport would interpret it. In essays, use him to show that prejudice can be reduced, but not by contact alone. The quality of the contact matters.

## Gordon Allport vs Social Identity Theory

People mix these up because both deal with groups and prejudice. Social Identity Theory explains bias through in-group favoritism and the need for positive group identity. Allport is better known for explaining prejudice and for arguing that the right kind of contact between groups can reduce it.

## Key Takeaways

- Gordon Allport is a major Social Psychology figure best known for studying prejudice and proposing ways to reduce it.
- His contact hypothesis says that intergroup contact can lower prejudice, but only when conditions like equal status and cooperation are present.
- Allport helped turn prejudice into a topic you can analyze through social conditions, cognition, and learned attitudes.
- His work connects personality and social behavior, especially through the idea that attitudes can persist even after their original motive changes.
- If a scenario is about changing bias through structured group contact, Allport is one of the first theories to check.

## FAQs

### What is Gordon Allport in Social Psychology?

Gordon Allport is a classic Social Psychology theorist known for studying prejudice and personality. He is especially associated with the idea that contact between groups can reduce prejudice when the contact happens under the right conditions.

### What is Allport’s contact hypothesis?

Allport’s contact hypothesis says that interaction between different groups can reduce prejudice. The contact works best when the groups have equal status, common goals, cooperation, and support from the larger social setting. Without those conditions, contact may do little or even increase tension.

### How is Gordon Allport different from Social Identity Theory?

Allport is more focused on prejudice reduction through intergroup contact, while Social Identity Theory explains bias through group membership and in-group favoritism. They overlap because both deal with attitudes toward groups, but they answer different questions. One focuses on what causes bias, and the other on how to lower it.

### How do you use Gordon Allport in a class example?

Look for a scenario where two groups improve their attitudes after working together on a shared task. If the contact is cooperative and the groups have equal standing, Allport’s idea fits well. You can also use him when a prompt asks why prejudice may stick around even after the original reason for it is gone.

## Related Study Guides

- [9.2 Prejudice: Causes and Consequences](/social-psychology/unit-9/prejudice-consequences/study-guide/diPgHtbD1OyrukSt)

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