information:highlighting, structural:scholar_edition, linguistic:paraphrasing
History

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s led social scientists to study prejudice, discrimination, and collective action in the context of race in America. In 1952, the NAACP put out a call for social science research to further study these issues in light of the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit. Gordon Allport 's 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice provided the first theoretical framework for understanding and counteracting prejudice, and cemented prejudice as a central focus of social psychology. In his book, Allport proposed the contact hypothesis which states that interpersonal contact, under the correct conditions, can be an effective means of reducing prejudice, discrimination, and reliance on stereotypes. Subsequent generations of scientists built on and applied Allport's contact hypothesis to other domains of prejudice including sexism, homophobia, and ableism.