The book was called a classic a decade after its initial publication, in 1965. Irwin Katz, writing in
Political Psychology in 1991 on the topic of "classics in
political psychology", called the book a landmark and "one of the most influential and often-cited publications in the entire field of
intergroup relations". In a volume published roughly on the fiftieth anniversary of the book's original debut,
On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport (2008), the authors referred to Allport's book as "the fundamental work for social psychology of prejudice" and the most widely cited work on the subject, still used in teaching and quoted in modern research. Most contemporary research on how racism shapes
public opinion is rooted in
The Nature of Prejudice. A further influence of the book was the later formulation of the
common ingroup identity theory. He noted, however, that Allport's assumption that prejudice causes discrimination has still to be proven beyond doubt; In addition to being highly influential in the field of social psychology, the revised (and shortened) second edition of the book (
The Nature of Prejudice: Abridged) published in 1958 was also a success on the mass market, being written in a relatively simple way that was accessible to a general readership. One of the reasons for its success, in Pettigrew and Hammann's opinion, was the boldness of its topic: while targeting a
white, Protestant, American, and mostly male readership, it discussed numerous examples of anti-African-American, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, and anti-female prejudices. ==References==