Danbold Felix, Huo Yuen J
University College London, London, UK.
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2022 Feb;48(2):268-282. doi: 10.1177/01461672211004806. Epub 2021 May 19.
We propose a theoretical framework for when and why members of dominant groups experience threat and express intolerant attitudes in response to social change. Scholarship on symbolic threat suggests that the detection of intergroup differences in values and norms is sufficient to elicit negative intergroup attitudes. Building on this theory, we argue that the experience of threat is actually shaped by beliefs about difference (i.e., expectations of whether outgroups will assimilate to ingroup norms over time or not). Across two studies and two accompanying pilots, we show how outgroup assimilation expectation shapes dominant groups' experiences of threat, specifically as it relates to their ability to define the norms of their superordinate category (prototypicality threat). We observe that members of dominant groups are surprisingly tolerant of both social change and intergroup difference in the present, so long as they expect outgroup assimilation in the future.
我们提出了一个理论框架，用于解释优势群体成员在何时以及为何会因社会变革而感受到威胁并表现出不容忍态度。关于象征性威胁的学术研究表明，察觉到群体间在价值观和规范上的差异足以引发负面的群体间态度。基于这一理论，我们认为，威胁感实际上是由对差异的信念塑造的（即对外群体是否会随着时间推移融入内群体规范的预期）。在两项研究以及两项配套试点研究中，我们展示了外群体同化预期如何塑造优势群体的威胁感，特别是它与优势群体定义其上级类别规范的能力相关时（原型性威胁）。我们观察到，只要优势群体成员预期未来外群体能够同化，他们目前对社会变革和群体间差异的容忍度就会出奇地高。
