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Across three studies, conducted between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021, we tested whether exposure to an Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) target person wearing a face mask would increase or decrease White Americans' perceived threat from and positivity toward AAPI individuals. Although results varied by study, a single‐paper meta‐analysis revealed that the masked (compared to unmasked) AAPI target resulted in greater positivity toward AAPIs, due to reduced perceptions of both symbolic threat to group values and realistic threat to group health. Positivity toward AAPIs did not reliably differ after exposure to a masked versus unmasked White target. Implications for interventions that encourage COVID‐safe behaviors and combat anti‐AAPI attitudes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There remains an obvious gap in the acculturation literature, which relates to cultural change associated with the majority/dominant group. This paper explores how majority members react to a perceived expectation from minority members that majority members should undergo cultural change. A study was conducted exploring how majority members' perceptions of a demand by minority members that the majority should adopt the minority culture affects the majority members' preferences for minority acculturation, and whether effects are mediated by perceptions of symbolic threat. Two hundred sixty‐six participants who self‐reported being white British completed an online survey. A model was hypothesized whereby a perception that minority members demand that the majority takes on the minority culture predicted perceived symbolic threat, which was in turn negatively associated with a desire that minority members should maintain the minority culture, and positively with a desire that minority members should adopt the majority culture. Results supported the hypothesized model, with all individual paths and indirect effects significant in the hypothesized directions. Symbolic threat mediated the effect of perceived demand for minority culture adoption on majority preferences for minority acculturation. Findings are discussed in relation to implications for intergroup relations in culturally plural societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Links between competitive victimhood and discrimination are well documented. However, the mechanisms how victimhood beliefs remain relevant for decades and how conflict survivors can shape attitudes and behaviours of the post‐conflict generations are little understood. Following the Transgenerational Transmission Hypothesis and the Integrated Threat Theory, we propose that the link between parental competitive victimhood and discrimination among their children is mediated through family ethnic socialization and symbolic threat to the in‐group. Participants were families that included youth (N = 227) and their parents (172 mothers, 150 fathers) in Vukovar, Croatia. A multiple group, chain mediation model was conducted with parental competitive victimhood as the predictor; youth ethnic socialization and symbolic threat as sequential mediators; and youth tendency to discriminate against the outgroup and perceived ethnic in‐group discrimination as outcomes. The findings revealed significant indirect effects of the competitive victimhood on both outcomes, via the proposed mediators. The only difference in the model between majority Croats and minority Serbs was the path from symbolic threat to tendency to discriminate, which was positive and significant for both groups, but stronger among Croats. The findings imply that interventions in post‐conflict settings need to address family ethnic socialization processes in addition to directly working with youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, which are one of the major social movements in the last decade, have sharpened the sociopolitical polarization in the country. The present study employed a moderated mediation model in which symbolic threat, realistic threat, and perspective taking were examined as mediators between competitive victimhood and opposing groups' differential evaluations of the protests. Further, the pro‐Gezi versus the anti‐Gezi group membership was hypothesized to moderate the mediation effects. Proponents (N = 337) and opponents (N = 138) of the protests were asked to respond to the measures corresponding to the variables in the model. Results revealed that for protest supporters, competitive victimhood predicted evaluations of the protests through realistic threat, but not through symbolic threat; in contrast, for opponents, it predicted evaluations of the protests through symbolic but not realistic threat. Further, perspective taking turned out to be a weak mediator. The results are discussed in terms of the differential power relationships between the groups in the cultural and political domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the influence of race on juvenile court outcomes across various offense types. This study builds on previous research in the field by utilizing the symbolic threat perspective as a foundation for understanding differences in juvenile disposition. It is hypothesized that the influence of race varies across offense types (misdemeanors and felonies) for the pre‐detention and disposition outcomes. Data from a sample of juvenile court referrals from two Midwestern juvenile courts were utilized and partitioned by race. Results were mixed and not always in the hypothesized direction. However, the results indicated that race did have an influence on both pre and post adjudication juvenile court outcomes, an effect which varied by type of offense and race. This study illustrates the importance of examining juvenile court outcomes from a multi‐stage approach that includes legal and extra‐legal factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Consistent with the theory of malleable ideology, research has shown that, under intergroup threat, antiegalitarian individuals will exploit the malleable character of color blindness and strategically claim to be strong supporters of it. In three studies conducted in France, we found no support for this theory when measuring color blindness but strong support when using measures of laïcité, an ideology of secularism. Indeed, those who score low on social dominance orientation (SDO) were more likely to support laïcité than antiegalitarian individuals. However, a situational threat (Study 1), a symbolic threat experimentally induced (Study 2), and a perceived symbolic threat (Study 3) were all related to increased support for laïcité by people high in SDO, without affecting those low in SDO. Thus, laïcité is a malleable ideology that can be adopted by individuals having contrasting motivations, as color blindness in the United States. Implications for the role of exact and conceptual replications in the development of a psychological science are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although different types of prejudice tend to be highly correlated, target-specific and more generalized components can nevertheless be distinguished. Here, we analyze whether indicators of the intergroup context-threat, contact, and neighborhood composition-predict the target-specific and/or generalized components of prejudice. Using data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study ( N = 4629), we build a multilevel model that captures the relationship between social dominance orientation, general levels of neighborhood heterogeneity, symbolic and realistic threat and cross-group friendship (averaged across target groups), and generalized prejudice. Our model simultaneously estimates the relationship between target-specific levels of these intergroup context indicators and target-specific prejudice. Results indicated that social dominance orientation remained the strongest predictor of generalized prejudice when adjusting for other variables and that indicators of the intergroup context primarily explain differences between target group ratings. Aggregate levels of cross-group friendship also had a small effect on generalized prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals are often confronted with intergroup threats, yet many of these threats emanate from distant groups that most individuals are unlikely to encounter in their local environment. An important yet unanswered question is whether reactions to those threats, such as intolerance towards the threatening group, carry over to other groups that individuals actually do encounter in their local environment (e.g., immigrants). The main goal of our studies was to experimentally identify this carry-over effect of intergroup threat. Specifically, we hypothesized that (by definition relatively abstract) symbolic threats (e.g., threats to the ingroup's worldview) have an especially strong carry-over potential because those threats can be easily attributed to other outgroups. We tested these predictions in one correlational and two experimental studies. The results of all three studies confirmed our hypothesis that particularly distant symbolic threats were predictive of intolerance towards local outgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]