White Americans may find diversity threatening in part because they construe non-White Americans as a coherent social and political force. We argue that this perception manifests in a belief that minority groups collude against White people and that White people should act as a political bloc to defend ingroup interests. In a 3-year longitudinal study, the belief in minority collusion and support for White identity politics increased significantly among a nationally representative sample of 2,635 White Americans. Compared to White Democrats, White Republicans more strongly endorsed minority collusion beliefs and White identity politics, and increased more in these beliefs over time. Essentialist perceptions of the White ingroup were associated with longitudinal increases in minority collusion beliefs, but not in support for White identity politics. Endorsement of minority collusion and support for White identity politics both predicted lower support for Black Lives Matter and greater support for the Alt-Right movement. Implications for race relations, stigma-based solidarity, and the psychology of partisanship and ideology are discussed.
AbascalM. (2020). Contraction as a response to group threat: Demographic decline and Whites’ classification of people who are ambiguously White. American Sociological Review, 85, 298–322. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420905127
2.
AbelsonR. P.DasguptaN.ParkJ.BanajiM. R. (1998). Perceptions of the collective other. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 243–250. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_2
3.
AdornoT.Frenkel-BrunswikE.LevinsonD. J.Nevitt SanfordR. (1964). The authoritarian personality. John Wiley & Sons. (Original work published 1950)
4.
AgadullinaE. R.LovakovA. V. (2018). Are people more prejudiced towards groups that are perceived as coherent? A meta-analysis of the relationship between out-group entitativity and prejudice. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57, 703–731. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12256
5.
BlalockH. M. (1967). Toward a theory of minority-group relations. John Wiley & Sons.
6.
BlanchardA. L.CaudillL. E.WalkerL. S. (2020). Developing an entitativity measure and distinguishing it from antecedents and outcomes within online and face-to-face groups. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 23, 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217743577
7.
BlumerH. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1, 3–7. https://doi.org/10.2307/1388607
8.
BollenK. A.CurranP. J. (2006). Latent curve models: A structural equation perspective. John Wiley & Sons.
9.
BrewerM. B.HongY. Y.LiQ. (2004). Dynamic entitativity: Perceiving groups as actors. In JuddC. M.CorneilleO.YzerbytV. (Eds.), The psychology of group perception (Vol. 19, pp. 25–38). Psychology Press.
BursonE.GodfreyE. B. (2020). Intraminority solidarity: The role of critical consciousness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 50, 1362–1377. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2679
ChoiK.SeltzerM.HermanJ.YamashiroK. (2007). Children left behind in AYP and non-AYP schools: Using student progress and the distribution of student gains to validate AYP. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 26, 21–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3992.2007.00098.x
14.
CortlandC. I.CraigM. A.ShapiroJ. R.RichesonJ. A.NeelR.GoldsteinN. J. (2017). Solidarity through shared disadvantage: Highlighting shared experiences of discrimination improves relations between stigmatized groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 547–567. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000100
15.
CraigM. A.RichesonJ. A. (2012). Coalition or derogation? How perceived discrimination influences intraminority intergroup relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 759–777. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026481
16.
CraigM. A.RichesonJ. A. (2014a). More diverse yet less tolerant? How the increasingly diverse racial landscape affects White Americans’ racial attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 750–761. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214524993
17.
CraigM. A.RichesonJ. A. (2014b). On the precipice of a “majority-minority” America: Perceived status threat from the racial demographic shift affects White Americans’ political ideology. Psychological Science, 25, 1189–1197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614527113
18.
CraigM. A.RichesonJ. A. (2016). Stigma-based solidarity: Understanding the psychological foundations of conflict and coalition among members of different stigmatized groups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 21–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415611252
19.
DasguptaN.BanajiM. R.AbelsonR. P. (1999). Group entitativity and group perception: Associations between physical features and psychological judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 991–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.77.5.991
DuckittJ.SibleyC. G. (2009). A dual-process motivational model of ideology, politics, and prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 20, 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400903028540
22.
DuckittJ.SibleyC. G. (2010). Personality, ideology, prejudice, and politics: A dual-process motivational model. Journal of Personality, 78, 1861–1893. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00672.x
23.
EffronD. A.KnowlesE. D. (2015). Entitativity and intergroup bias: How belonging to a cohesive group allows people to express their prejudices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 234–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000020
24.
EnosR. D. (2017). The space between us: Social geography and politics. Cambridge University Press.
GerberA. S.HuberG. A. (2010). Partisanship, political control, and economic assessments. American Journal of Political Science, 54, 153–173. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20647977
28.
GilesM. W. (1977). Percent Black and racial hostility: An old assumption reexamined. Social Science Quarterly, 58, 412–417. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42859833
29.
GilesM. W.BucknerM. A. (1993). David Duke and Black threat: An old hypothesis revisited. The Journal of Politics, 55, 702–713. https://doi.org/10.2307/2131995
HaslamN.BastianB.BainP.KashimaY. (2006). Psychological essentialism, implicit theories, and intergroup relations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9, 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430206059861
33.
HaslamN.LevyS. R. (2006). Essentialist beliefs about homosexuality: Structure and implications for prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 471–485. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205276516
34.
JardinaA. (2019). White identity politics. Cambridge University Press.
35.
JoslynM. R.Haider-MarkelD. P. (2014). Who knows best? Education, partisanship, and contested facts. Politics and Policy, 42, 919–947. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12098
JostJ. T.GlaserJ.KruglanskiA. W.SullowayF. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 339–375. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339
38.
JostJ. T.SterlingJ.SternC. (2017). Getting closure on conservatism, or the politics of epistemic and existential motivation. In KopetzC. E.FishbachA. (Eds.), The motivation–cognition interface (pp. 56–87). Routledge.
39.
KnowlesE. D.LoweryB. S.ChowR. M.UnzuetaM. M. (2014). Deny, distance, or dismantle? How White Americans manage a privileged identity. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9, 594–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614554658
40.
KnowlesE. D.LoweryB. S.ShulmanE. P.SchaumbergR. L. (2013). Race, ideology, and the Tea Party: A longitudinal study. PLoS One, 8, Article e67110. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067110
41.
KnowlesE. D.MarshburnC. K. (2010). Understanding White identity politics will be crucial to diversity science. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 134–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2010.483245
42.
KnowlesE. D.TroppL. R. (2018). The racial and economic context of Trump support: Evidence for threat, identity, and contact effects in the 2016 presidential election. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9, 275–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618759326
43.
LickelB.HamiltonD. L.ShermanS. J. (2001). Elements of a lay theory of groups: Types of groups, relational styles, and the perception of group entitativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 129–140. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0502_4
44.
LizotteM.-K. (2017). Gender, partisanship, and issue gaps. ASAP: Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 17, 379–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12144
LoweryB. S.ChowR. M.KnowlesE. D.UnzuetaM. M. (2012). Paying for positive group esteem: How inequity frames affect Whites’ responses to redistributive policies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 323–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024598
47.
MajorB.BlodornA.Major BlascovichG. (2018). The threat of increasing diversity: Why many White Americans support Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21, 931–940. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430216677304
NewheiserA.-K.SawaokaT.DovidioJ. F. (2012). Why do we punish groups? High entitativity promotes moral suspicion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 931–936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.013
OuttenH. R.SchmittM. T.MillerD. A.GarciaA. L. (2012). Feeling threatened about the future: Whites’ emotional reactions to anticipated ethnic demographic changes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 14–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211418531
QuillianL. (1995). Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: Population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe. American Sociological Review, 60, 586–611. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096296
60.
QuillianL. (1996). Group threat and regional change in attitudes toward African-Americans. American Journal of Sociology, 102, 816–860. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2782464
61.
RichesonJ. A.CraigM. A. (2011). Intra-minority intergroup relations in the twenty-first century. Daedalus, 140, 166–175. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23047459
SeltzerM.ChoiK.ThumY. M. (2003). Examining relationships between where students start and how rapidly they progress: Using new developments in growth modeling to gain insight into the distribution of achievement within schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25, 263–286. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3699495
64.
SengulK. (2019). Populism, democracy, political style and post-truth: Issues for communication research. Communication Research and Practice, 5, 88–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2019.1561399
65.
SibleyC. G.DuckittJ. (2013). The dual process model of ideology and prejudice: A longitudinal test during a global recession. The Journal of Social Psychology, 153, 448–466. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2012.757544
66.
SotoC. J. (2015). Is happiness good for your personality? Concurrent and prospective relations of the Big Five with subjective well-being. Journal of Personality, 83, 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12081
Te GrotenhuisM.PelzerB.EisingaR.NieuwenhuisR.Schmidt-CatranA.KonigR. (2017). When size matters: Advantages of weighted effect coding in observational studies. International Journal of Public Health, 62, 163–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0901-1
WaisbordS. (2018a). The elective affinity between post-truth communication and populist politics. Communication Research and Practice, 4, 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2018.1428928
73.
WaisbordS. (2018b). Why populism is troubling for democratic communication. Communication, Culture & Critique, 11, 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcx005
74.
WebsterD. M.KruglanskiA. W. (1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1049–1062. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.67.6.1049
75.
WesterwickA.JohnsonB. K.Knobloch-WesterwickS. (2017). Confirmation biases in selective exposure to political online information: Source bias vs. content bias. Communication Monographs, 84, 343–364. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2016.1272761
76.
WettsR.WillerR. (2018). Privilege on the precipice: Perceived racial status threats lead White Americans to oppose welfare programs. Social Forces, 97, 793–822. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy046
77.
WillerR.FeinbergM.WettsR. (2016). Threats to racial status promote Tea Party support among White Americans. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2770186
78.
WilliamsM. J.EberhardtJ. L. (2008). Biological conceptions of race and the motivation to cross racial boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 1033–1047. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.1033
79.
Wray-LakeL.ArrudaE. H.HopkinsD. A. (2019). The party goes on: U.S. young adults’ partisanship and political engagement across age and historical time. American Politics Research, 47, 1358–1375. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19849692
80.
YzerbytV.JuddC. M.CorneilleO. (Eds.). (2004). The psychology of group perception: Perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism. Psychology Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
