THE BEST WAY to reduce prejudice is to understand it, according to Susan Fiske, Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University.

"There are a couple of universal principles of prejudice — some basic human tendencies to see people in certain ways," Fiske said at Rider University in Lawrenceville on the evening of Nov. 7.

"These can lead to certain kinds of emotional reactions and certain kinds of discriminating behaviors," she said. "If we understand that, we understand what we have to fight against."

Fiske's discussion of her scientific research into universal biases in the brain and human culture formed the focus of the inaugural Marvin W. Goldstein Prejudice Reduction Lecture at Rider. More than 200 students and faculty members turned out to hear her lecture and to honor Marvin Goldstein, associate professor emeritus of psychology at the university.

Rider's Department of Psychology established the endowed lecture series in recognition of Goldstein's 38 years of service to the department as well as his role as a founder and longtime codirector of the university's Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust Resource Center.

"I'm just overwhelmed," Goldstein said in an interview before the program. "They came up with this idea and it fit in so well with all I've done over the years at Rider. It's a culmination of my work in psychology and my work at the Holocaust center."

Harvey Kornberg, director of the center and former longtime codirector with Goldstein, called the endowed lecture series "a superb honor for Marvin."

"I'm very pleased," said Kornberg, who is an associate professor of political science at the university. "Obviously, one of the reasons is his great work with the Holocaust center."

The new lecture series is an expression of Goldstein's longtime interest in combating prejudice through education, said university president Mordechai Rozanski.

"I think it's a wonderful event that pays tribute to Dr. Goldstein — and, particularly, it's a focus on his contribution to scholarship in psychology and his commitment to social justice as one of the founders of the Holocaust center and as an advocate of public education," Rozanski said. "He wonderfully combines the notion of an academic committed to scholarly inquiry and to public discourse."