Integrated threat theory (ITT), also known as intergroup threat theory,
[
] is a
theory
A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...
in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
and
sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...
which attempts to describe the components of perceived threat that lead to
prejudice
Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...
between
social group
In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. F ...
s. The theory applies to any social group that may feel threatened in some way, whether or not that social group is a majority or
minority group
The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...
in their
society
A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...
. This theory deals with
perceived threat rather than actual threat. Perceived threat includes all of the threats that members of group believe they are experiencing, regardless of whether those threats actually exist. For example, people may feel their economic well-being is threatened by an
outgroup Outgroup may refer to:
* Outgroup (cladistics), an evolutionary-history concept
* Outgroup (sociology)
In social psychology and sociology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By cont ...
stealing their jobs even if, in reality, the outgroup has no effect on their job opportunities. Still, their perception that their
job security
Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing ...
is under threat can increase their levels of prejudice against the outgroup. Thus, even
false alarm
A false alarm, also called a nuisance alarm, is the deceptive or erroneous report of an emergency, causing unnecessary panic and/or bringing resources (such as emergency services) to a place where they are not needed. False alarms may occur with ...
s about threat still have "real consequence" for prejudice between groups.
Original components of the theory
ITT was first proposed by Walter G. Stephan and Cookie White Stephan (2000).
[Stephan, W. G.; Stephan, C. W. (2000). An integrated threat theory of prejudice. In Oskamp, S. (Ed.) Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination (pp. 23–45). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.] The original theory had four components: realistic threats, symbolic threats,
intergroup anxiety, and negative
stereotypes
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...
.
Realistic threats
Realistic threats are threats that pose a danger to the ingroup's well-being. These can include threats to physical safety or health, threats to economic and political power, and threats to the existence of the group. This component was originally developed as a part of
realistic conflict theory
Realistic conflict theory (RCT), also known as realistic group conflict theory (RGCT), is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict. The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition ...
by
Donald T. Campbell (1965).
Symbolic threats
Symbolic threats arise where there is a perceived difference between the values and worldview of an
ingroup and outgroup
In social psychology and sociology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example ...
. The difference can make the ingroup feel that the outgroup poses a threat to their group
morals
Morality () is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduc ...
, standards,
beliefs
A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...
, and
attitudes. These threats are thus strongly tied to a group's sense of identity. The category was derived from
Gordon Allport
Gordon William Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personali ...
's discussion of the relationship between one's values and one's identity. He proposed that, since values are important to who we are, we will reject other groups that disagree with our values. It is also based on the research of Esses et al. (1993), who found that groups had more negative feelings towards an outgroup if that outgroup interfered with the ingroup's customs.
Intergroup anxiety
Intergroup anxiety refers to the expectation that interacting with someone from a different group will be a negative experience. People with intergroup anxiety fear that they will feel uncomfortable,
embarrassed, unsafe, or judged, either by members of the outgroup or by people of their own ingroup. Before creating the ITT framework, Stephan & Stephan (1985) had been conducting research on intergroup anxiety. The concept of intergroup anxiety also draws from the
Aversive Racism
Aversive racism is a social scientific theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio (1986), according to which negative evaluations of racial/ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial an ...
theory, which argues that subconscious negative feelings about
Black Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
are an important part of
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
against them.
Negative stereotypes
Stereotypes are a strategy of simplifying a complex situation by relying on popular pre-set judgements.
[Stephan, W.G. & Stephan, C.W. (1993) Cognition and affect in stereotyping : parallel interactive networks. In Mackie, D.M. & Hamilton, D.L. (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and stereotyping - interactive processes in group perception (pp. 137-166). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.] ITT predicts that negative pre-set judgments about another group can lead to prejudice. This component of ITT draws from research that found that belief in negatively-rated stereotypical traits was linked to higher levels of prejudice against the stereotyped group.
Stephan & Stephan (2000) acknowledged that some research has not found links between prejudice and general stereotypes.
Thus, it seems that, while general stereotypes assume some positive things about other groups, only the negative aspects of stereotypes are relevant to prejudice.
Updated two-component theory
Stephan & Renfro (2002) proposed an updated version of the theory which reduced the four components to two basic types: realistic and symbolic threats. The categories of negative stereotypes and intergroup anxiety were removed from the basic framework of the theory because they were found to be better understood as subtypes of threat. They can lead to either realistic or symbolic threats rather than standing as their own separate categories.
For example, intergroup anxiety can be based on expectations of physical danger, a realistic threat, as well as on expectations of damage to one's identity, a symbolic threat.
Experimental Support
Since ITT makes a causal claim that perceived threat causes prejudice, studies using an
experimental design
The design of experiments (DOE), also known as experiment design or experimental design, is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. ...
are necessary. Some researchers have taken on this task to experimentally manipulate types of realistic and perceived threat in order to examine if they cause prejudice. For example, Esses et al. (1998)
and Esses et al. (2001)
carried out research studies in which they manipulated the research participants' understanding of economic threat posed by
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...
. Esses et al. (1998) had
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
undergraduate student participants read one of two editorials that were written for the study.
One editorial discussed a new group of immigrants with no mention of the job market while the other editorial discussed the same group and emphasized their success in finding jobs despite the scarcity of jobs in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. They then studied the effects of perception of economic threat, a type of realistic threat, on attitudes about immigrants and reported willingness to help immigrants. Results showed that participants that read the editorial that emphasized competition had less favorable attitudes towards immigrants and were less likely to approve of programs to empower immigrants.
[Esses, V.M., Jackson, L.M., Armstrong, T.L. (1998). Intergroup competition and attitudes toward immigrants and immigration: An instrumental model. Journal of Social Issues, 54, 699-724.] Esses et al. (2001) carried out similar experiments with very similar editorials. Their results showed that participants that read articles that emphasized the tough job market had more negative attitudes towards the immigrants, were less supportive of their immigration into Canada, and were less supportive of programs to empower immigrants.
[Esses, V.M., Dovidio, J.F., Jackson, L.M., Armstrong, T.L. (2001). The immigration dilemma: The role of perceived competition, ethnic prejudice, and national identity. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 389-412.] The data from these research studies provide some support for the causal influence of realistic threat on prejudice against immigrants.
The causal influence of symbolic threat on prejudice was partially explored in a study by Branscombe & Wann (1994), who focused on perceived threat to ingroup identity in particular.
The participants, undergraduate females from the U.S., answered questionnaires about their levels of pride in their
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, p ...
identity at the beginning of the study. They then manipulated the participants' perceived threat to ingroup identity using video clips, which either showed an American or a
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
boxer Boxer most commonly refers to:
*Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing
* Boxer (dog), a breed of dog
Boxer or boxers may also refer to:
Animal kingdom
* Boxer crab
* Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans
* Boxer snipe ee ...
beating the other in a match. After seeing one version of the video, participants completed a questionnaire that measured their desire to distance themselves from the outgroup, in this case, Russians. The results of this study showed that increased perception of threat to ingroup identity raises a desire to distance oneself from the outgroup.
[Branscome, N. & Wann, D. (1994). Collective self esteem consequences of outgroup derogation when a valued social identity is on trial. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 641-657] This provides some experimental evidence that perception of threat to ingroup identity may causes greater prejudice towards outgroups. However, further experimental research is necessary in order to more firmly and widely establish the causal role of realistic and symbolic threats in prejudice.
Factors that influence levels of perceived threat
There are several factors that can lead to increased or decreased levels of group perceived threat.
Power Dynamics
The updated ITT theory draws from the findings of
contact hypothesis
In psychology and other social sciences, the contact hypothesis suggests that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can effectively reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. Following WWII and the desegregation of the ...
, which claims that it is important to have equality between groups. Power dynamics between two groups are shown to have an influence on how the groups relate to and perceive each other. High-power groups are more likely to influence and threaten other groups. Low-power groups are often vulnerable to the influence and threats of other groups. Thus, low-power groups tend to be on alert and perceive more threats than high power groups do.
[Stephan, Walter G.; Ybarra, Oscar; Morrison, Kimberly Rios (2009). "Intergroup Threat Theory". In Nelson, Todd D. Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press. Taylor and Francis Group. p. 44.] Corenblum & Stephan (2001) found, for example, that
Native Canadians
Indigenous peoples in Canada (also known as Aboriginals) are the Indigenous peoples within the boundaries of Canada. They comprise the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, representing roughly 5.0% of the total Canadian population. There are over ...
felt more threatened by White Canadians than White Canadians felt about them. However, when high-power groups do perceive threat from another group, they "will react more strongly" than low-power groups.
This is likely because they have more to lose if the threat is real and have more resources that allow them to counter to such threats.
Two groups of relatively equal power status can be especially sensitive to feeling threatened if they are in competition with each other for resources, such as jobs.
Identity
Stephan & Renfro (2016) predicted that, the more important group membership is to ingroup members' sense of personal identity, the more likely those people will feel threatened by and uncomfortable when interacting with other groups. According to this prediction, people with strong ingroup identification are likely to be more focused on differences between the groups, thus giving them more motivation to hold negative stereotypes of other groups so that they can believe that their group is the best.
[Stephan, W.G., & Renfro, C.L. (2016). The Role of Threat in Intergroup Relations. In Mackie, D.M. & Smith, E.R. (Eds.), From Prejudice to Intergroup Emotions: Differentiated Reactions to Social Groups, (191-207). ProQuest Ebook Central.]
Culture
There may be a link between the personal importance of group membership and the larger culture in which the groups live. Collectivistic cultures, for example, place a greater emphasis on the importance of group membership compared to individualistic cultures. Culture can also influence perceived threat between groups through the culture's level of uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede & Bond (1984) define uncertainty avoidance as "the degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations, and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these." Stephan & Renfro (2002) thus suggest that cultures which hold norms and laws as very important are likely to perceive threat from "unfamiliar groups."
Further research on these topics can better inform the role of culture in intergroup relationships.
Research applications
ITT has been used in research on various social groups, including immigrants,
Muslims
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
, tourists, and more.
Immigrants
Multiple studies on intergroup relations have focused on immigrants. For example, Ward & Masgoret (2006) built upon ITT in combination with the Instrumentive Model of Group Conflict to test a model of attitudes toward immigrants, using participants from
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
.
These participants filled out questionnaires that measured Multicultural Ideology, Intergroup Anxiety, Contact with Immigrants, Perceived Intergroup Threat, and Attitudes toward Immigrants. The results supported the model, suggesting that increased contact with immigrants and multicultural ideology are related to lower levels of perceived threat from immigrants, which is in turn directly related to more positive attitudes towards immigrants.
[Ward, C. & Masgoret, A.M. (2006). An integrative model of attitudes towards immigrants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 30, 671-682.]
Croucher (2013) used the ITT framework to explore reasons that dominant groups in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, and
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
sometimes resist Muslim immigrants' efforts to assimilate. The data was collected through questionnaires, which included measures for symbolic threats, realistic threats, stereotypes, perception of immigrants' motivation to assimilate, and multigroup ethnic identity. The results supported the theory that the more that the dominant groups felt threatened by the immigrants, the less they thought that the immigrants wanted to assimilate into their country.
Similarly, Rohmann et al. (2008) used the ITT framework to examine the relationship between perceived threat and a dominant group's expectation of an immigrant group's attitude about acculturation. Their research included two studies, one in which
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
participants were asked about their expectations of
French and
Turkish immigrants in Germany and another in which German participants were asked about their expectations of two fictitious groups, based on paragraph-long descriptions. Results from both studies suggest that levels of perceived threat are higher if dominant groups expect that an immigrant group has different attitudes about acculturation than the dominant group does.
Muslims
Tausch et al. (2009) examined Muslim relations with
Hindus
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. ITT was incorporated into their research in order to examine which factors are important in perceived threat between the minority Muslim and majority Hindu groups of India. Their data was collected through a survey given to both Muslim and Hindu students at the same university, which measured contact quantity, contact quality, perceived relative status of the two groups, realistic threats, symbolic threats, intergroup anxiety, preference for social distance, and ingroup bias.
[Tausch, N., Hewstone, M., & Roy, R. (2009). The relationships between contact, status and prejudice: An integrated threat theory analysis of Hindu–Muslim relations in India. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 19, 83-94.] Results showed that symbolic threat was important for Hindus' levels of perceived threat while realistic threat was important for Muslims' levels of perceived threat.
Gonzalez et al. (2008) carried out similar research in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, examining the prejudice of
Dutch
Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship ()
** Dutch language ()
* In specific terms, i ...
youth, who are members of the majority, against the Muslim minority in the country. Their data was collected through a questionnaire given to high schoolers in different cities, which measured support for multicultural ideologies, frequency of contact with Muslims, ingroup identification, realistic economic threat, symbolic threats, stereotypes, and prejudicial attitudes towards Muslims.
[Gonzalez, K.V., Verkuyten, M.W., Jeroen Poppe, E. (2008). Prejudice towards Muslims in The Netherlands: Testing integrated threat theory. British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 667-685.] Results showed that prejudicial attitudes were related to higher perception of symbolic threats and more belief in stereotypes.
Uenal (2016) applied the ITT framework to better understand factors involved in the presence of
Islamophobic
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
conspiracy stereotypes in
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The data was collected through an online survey given to German university students which measured
ambiguity intolerance
Ambiguity is the type of meaning (linguistics), meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A com ...
, belief in a
clash of civilizations
The "Clash of Civilizations" is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be ...
, realistic threats, symbolic threats, and levels of education.
[Uenal, F. (2016). The "Secret Islamization" of Europe: Exploring Integrated Threat Theory for Predicting Islamophobic Conspiracy Stereotypes. International Journal Of Conflict And Violence, 10, 94-108.] Ambiguity intolerance was found to be related to increased conspiracy stereotypes through increased perceptions of symbolic threat. Belief in a clash of civilizations was found to be related to higher levels of realistic and symbolic threat and higher levels of belief in conspiracy stereotypes. Higher education levels showed the opposite trends, as it was related to lower levels of perceived threat and lower levels of belief in conspiracy stereotypes.
Tourists
Tourism can bring different groups into contact and has thus been the subject of some research on intergroup relations using ITT. For example, Ward & Berno (2011) used ITT and contact hypothesis as theoretical backgrounds for predicting attitudes about tourism in
Fiji
Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...
and New Zealand. They collected data through surveys, which included measures of perceived impact of tourism, contact with tourists, the four aspects of the original ITT, and attitudes towards tourists.
[Ward, C. & Berno, T. (2011). Beyond social exchange theory: Attitudes towards tourists. Annals of Tourism Research, 38, 1556-1569.] Following the expectations of ITT, the data showed that lower levels of perceived realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety, and more positive stereotypes were useful predictors of positives attitudes about tourism.
Monterubio (2016) applied ITT in studying negative attitudes towards spring break tourists in
Cancun, Mexico. Data was collected through interviews with Cancun residents, which included questions about the social impact of spring break and attitudes towards spring breakers.
[Monterrubio, C. (2016). The impact of spring break behaviour: An integrated threat theory analysis of residents' prejudice. Tourism Management, 54, 418-427.] Transcripts of these interviews were then analyzed for themes, including the four components of the original ITT. The results suggested that realistic threats and intergroup anxiety were relevant aspects of prejudice against spring break tourists, largely because of the influence of their behavior.
Olaghere (2023) used ITT in an exploratory sequential study to investigate the impacts of tourism on residents of the Seychelles islands.
[Olaghere, J.A. (2023). Impacts of tourism on residents: an analysis of the integrated threat theory. An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research
Volume 34, 2023 - Issue 1: Social issues and emerging debates in tourism and hospitality 89-103.] Data were obtained through a mixed method (interviews and questionnaire surveys) along the four components of ITT. Realistic threats included restricted access to certain beaches, economic leakages, and increasing strain on infrastructure. Symbolic threats were increases in incidents of prostitution and drug use. Analyses of the results further indicated that the residents perceived the threats to be outweighed by the benefits and therefore retained positive attitudes towards tourists.
The results did not support intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes.
Critique of the theory
Stephan & Renfro (2002) updated ITT into the two-factor model and admitted that "ultimately, the model is circular." The theory states that perceived threat leads to prejudice but the outcomes of that prejudice itself can also lead into increased perceived threat.
Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory counters the way that ITT conceptualizes
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...
as harmful for relationships between social groups. Instead, it understands anxiety as helpful for leading to more effective communication between groups.
[Gudykunst, W. D. (1995). Anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory: Current status. International and intercultural communication annual, 19, 8-58.]
See also
*
Ambiguity intolerance
Ambiguity is the type of meaning (linguistics), meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A com ...
*
Authoritarian personality
The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term ''authoritarian personality'' originated from the writings of Erich Fr ...
*
Fearmongering
Fearmongering, or scaremongering, is the act of exploiting feelings of fear by using exaggerated rumors of impending danger, usually for personal gain.
Theory
According to evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary biology, humans have a strong ...
*
Need for closure
A need is a deficiency at a point of time and in a given context. Needs are distinguished from wants. In the case of a need, a deficiency causes a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. In other words, a need is something required for a ...
*
Realistic group conflict theory
*
Regality theory
The theory of regal and kungic societal structures, or regality theory, is a theory that seeks to explain certain cultural differences based on perceived collective danger and fear.
People will show a psychological preference for a strong leader ...
*
Right-wing authoritarianism
In psychology, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a set of attitudes, describing somebody who is highly submissive to their authority figures, acts aggressively in the name of said authorities, and is conformist in thought and behavior. The pr ...
*
Social dominance orientation
Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a personality trait measuring an individual's support for social hierarchy and the extent to which they desire their in-group be superior to out-groups. SDO is conceptualized under social dominance theory a ...
*
System justification theory
*
Terror management theory
Terror management theory (TMT) is both a social psychology, social and evolutionary psychology theory originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg (professor), Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski and codified in their book ''The Worm at ...
References
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Discrimination
Psychological theories
Sociological theories
Theories