Toward Eastern Understandings of Prejudice: Profile and Predictors in the South Korean Context

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictors of prejudice of South Korean adults toward four minority groups: people with disabilities, foreign immigrants/workers, sexual minorities, and North Korean refugees, drawing on social identity, scapegoat, and realistic conflict theories of prejudice. In the initial stage, a secondary cross-sectional dataset comprising responses from 8072 South Korean adults was used to perform latent profile analysis. Subsequently, a multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the predictors of prejudice. The findings revealed five distinct prejudice profiles in Korean society. Additionally, realistic conflict factors, such as antipathy to additional tax payment and social mobility expectation, were identified as significant predictors of prejudice, alongside the scapegoat and social identity determinants. Based on these findings, the study concluded that prejudice toward social minority groups in South Korea is associated not solely with personal attributes or psychological characteristics but also with broader national and socio-institutional contexts. The results may contribute to the broader discourse on intergroup relations, presenting actionable insights for policy, educational initiatives, and subsequent scholarly inquiry.