Abstract
Against the backdrop of significant social and political change in the US, dominant groups’ perceptions of discrimination against their group have increased. Previous research shows that group threat and legitimizing beliefs augment these perceptions. However, the concurrent role of individuals’ attitudes towards hierarchy in perceived discrimination has not been examined. In the present research, we investigate whether social dominance orientation (SDO) and group threat (status and moral image threat) interact to predict perceived discrimination among two dominant groups, White Americans and men. Furthermore, we test whether their perceived discrimination predicts less support for policies benefitting minorities and immigrants, and women, respectively. Across two correlational studies (Studies 1 and 2) and one experiment (Study 3), we found little support for the proposed interaction between SDO and group threat; instead, they were independent predictors of the outcomes. By testing SDO and perceived group threats simultaneously, these studies contribute to the literature by showing that group-based and hierarchy-based concerns play distinct roles in perceived discrimination among dominant groups.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
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.
