Relational Origins of Prejudice - (Library of Object Relations) by Ron B Aviram (Hardcover)

About the Book

A relational model orients us to the important relationship between an individual and the ingroup. An optimal balance between autonomy and attachment is crucial in early life and when the individual is forming relationships with large groups. In development, extremes indicate ...

Book Synopsis

A relational model orients us to the important relationship between an individual and the ingroup. An optimal balance between autonomy and attachment is crucial in early life and when the individual is forming relationships with large groups. In development, extremes indicate pathology. Prejudice is an outcome of an extreme attachment to the large group, called an overidentification. This can be a compensation for developmental difficulties, or shaped by environmental threats. Together, psychoanalysis and social psychology enhance our understanding about prejudice.

Review Quotes

Aviram presents a novel approach to studying prejudice. . . . Aviram deserves credit for reminding psychiatrists and social psychologists that they have more in common regarding the study of intergroup relations than they might have realized.

Aviram's book is a refreshing effort to include more than psychoanalytic theory to come to some understanding of the relationship of individuals to large groups.


Ron Aviram's The Relational Origins of Prejudice is a cogent and sophisticated account of how prejudice works in social life, and its enduring presence in the relational architecture of our minds. Aviram deploys the tools of modern psychoanalysis and those from contemporary social psychology to diagnose prejudice in our midst. This book makes a compelling case and shows how a deep understanding of prejudice is required to design correctives in clinical practice, in education, and in our communities.

Ron Aviram's new book greatly enlarges our understanding of prejudice as an innate human process that must be understood for humanity's well-being. Aviram breaks new ground by drawing equally on advances in modern psychoanalytic object relations theory and social psychology. His original concept of the social object, linked to survival issues in individual and group identity, highlights the significance of primary identification throughout the life cycle. Taken with his careful study of aggression, this forms a new layer of theory that complements major existing ideas while providing a bridge to the central role of large group life in the dissemination of prejudice. The advances in theory provided here will become staples in the study of prejudice, offering a new platform for programs of education about and intervention into its most malignant aspects. The Relational Origins of Prejudice is highly recommended to clinicians, researchers, students of social science and social policy, and to everyone interested in the study and mitigation of prejudice.

About the Author

Ron B. Aviram is Instructor in Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.