What Happens When Low Status Groups Start Moving Up? Prejudice and Threat to Group Position

Abstract

Does threat operate as a cause or a consequence of prejudice? Three studies investigated how high status groups respond to low status groups' advances. I hypothesized that gays' status gains are threatening to heterosexuals' privileged group position and lead to anti-gay prejudice, particularly among those high in social dominance orientation (SDO). In Study 1, gays' status was manipulated and participants donated coins to beneficiaries that support, oppose or were unrelated to gay rights. SDO was correlated with more anti-gay donations except when gays were low in status. In Studies 2A and 2B, SDO was correlated with perceived status gains. Study 3 tested the hypothesis that prejudice heightens perceptions of threat by conditioning negative and positive affect toward immigrants and measuring threat posed by economic or political gains. Relative to economic gains, political gains were more threatening to native-born Americans' status, and groups advancing in politics were seen as less warm.