Welcome to Be Like Us: Expectations of Outgroup Assimilation Shape Dominant Group Resistance to Diversity

Abstract

We propose a theoretical framework for when and why members of dominant groups experience threat and express intolerant attitudes in response to social change. Scholarship on symbolic threat suggests that the detection of intergroup differences in values and norms is sufficient to elicit negative intergroup attitudes. Building on this theory, we argue that the experience of threat is actually shaped by prospective beliefs about difference (i.e., expectations of whether outgroups will assimilate to ingroup norms over time or not). Across two studies and two accompanying pilots, we show how outgroup assimilation expectation shapes dominant groups’ experiences of threat, specifically as it relates to their ability to define the norms of their superordinate category (prototypicality threat). We observe that members of dominant groups are surprisingly tolerant of both social change and intergroup difference in the present, so long as they expect outgroup assimilation in the future.

Multiculturalism and Colorblindness as Threats to the Self: A Framework for Understanding Dominant and Non-Dominant Group Members’ Responses to Interethnic Ideologies

“…As described earlier, prototypicality threat involves the perception that one's group will cease to be the standard against which other groups are evaluated (Danbold & Huo, 2015). Dominant group members are, by default, usually considered to embody this prototype and hence should be most vulnerable to prototypicality threat, as non-dominant group members should not feel threatened at the prospect of losing something (i.e., being prototypical) that they did not have in the first place (Danbold & Huo, 2022). However, one exception involves contexts in which non-dominant group members constitute the majority; for example, the prototypical student at historically Black universities is African American, rather than White American.…”

“…In addition to realistic and symbolic threat, the third type of collective threat that multiculturalism may trigger for dominant group members is prototypicality threat , or the notion that non-dominant groups will come to be seen as more representative of the superordinate category (e.g., nationality) than dominant groups (Danbold & Huo, 2015, 2022) Unlike symbolic threat, prototypicality threat need not relate specifically to values. Even surface-level characteristics such as skin color, which are irrelevant to group values, may be used to determine who is seen as “belonging” more versus less to the superordinate category (e.g., people tend to associate “American” more closely with “White” than with other groups; Devos & Banaji, 2005).…”

“…Furthermore, being encouraged to think about diversity (vs. unity) is especially threatening to groups that consider themselves prototypical of the superordinate category (Steffens et al, 2017). In the context of multiculturalism, reminders of the importance of appreciating diversity could evoke concerns that other groups will eventually become more prototypical than the dominant group (see Danbold & Huo, 2022). Supporting this possibility, Hahn and colleagues argued that multiculturalism in Germany was met with backlash among native Germans in part because Germany’s increasing diversity was such a marked deviation from the group prototype (Hahn et al, 2010).…”

“…First, dominant group members may perceive less threat from multiculturalism if they are relatively underrepresented because they feel they have and are able to express a more distinctive identity (see McGuire et al, 1978; Rios & Mackey, 2022). Second, dominant group members may perceive more threat from multiculturalism if they are relatively underrepresented, because they feel their status as prototypical of the superordinate social category is in even greater jeopardy (see Danbold & Huo, 2015, 2022) However, these possibilities need not be mutually exclusive. For example, salient multiculturalism could lower perceptions of personal threat (i.e., enhance feelings of uniqueness), yet it could heighten perceptions of collective threat (e.g., to the group’s prototypicality), among dominant group members when their group’s representation is low.…”

“…It remains to be seen which possibility looms largest for dominant group members reminded of multicultural ideologies and under what conditions. Finally, the effects of salient multiculturalism on dominant group members’ perceptions of prototypicality threat (Danbold & Huo, 2015, 2022) have not been tested at all.…”