Does threat cause discrimination or does discrimination cause threat? ( ¿La amenaza causa la discriminación o la discriminación causa la amenaza? )

Abstract

A new experiment tested — and confirmed — the hypothesis that being the perpetrator of the discrimination of the minority subsequently makes one perceive this minority as more threatening. The experimental procedure assumed that the act of marking corrections of the linguistic errors of a person was a performative act that improves the image of competence of the corrector and worsens that of the corrected. The experiment (N = 147) followed a factorial design, 2 (author of the text: a young Gypsy vs. a young person) x 2 (making corrections vs. refraining from making corrections). Intergroup threat anxiety shows that discrimination against the minority increases the threat anxiety that is associated with a subsequent interaction with it. We conclude that being the perpetrator of the minority discrimination causes the majority to perceive the minority as more threatening. We discuss how this discrimination itself ends up transforming the representation of those minorities.