Adapting Minority Group Threat to Examine the Social Control of Sexual Orientation Bias

Abstract

Blalock proposed that the threat of a minority group toward a majority in sheer size, economic competition, or power will result in an increase in discrimination toward that group. His original formulation of this theory of minority group threat, and its subsequent extensions, has focused almost exclusively on racial minority–majority relationships; however, Blalock asserted that his theory would apply to any minority–majority group relationship. Extensions to religious groups have shown this is likely the case. The current analysis assesses a further extension of minority group threat by reframing the arguments of the theory and adding two additional sources of threat to examine sexual orientation bias. Data from the Uniform Crime Reports Hate Crime Statistics program are used to assess whether the minority group threat hypotheses explain the reporting of sexual orientation bias crimes. The findings indicate that the original formulation of Blalock’s theory does not suffice to explain the reporting of anti–Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual bias crime, but the proposed extensions may explain some of this variation.