There is a large academic literature that investigates the role of threat in motivating prejudice toward minorities. Commonly a distinction is drawn between two types of threat that are thought to constitute distinct, although not necessarily mutually exclusive, explanations of hostility toward out-groups. The first are economic threats, whether at the individual-level, such as threats to personal finances, or the collective-level, such as threats to the economy (Quillian Reference Quillian1995). The second are cultural threats, such as threats to shared values or ways of life (Sniderman and Hagendoorn Reference Sniderman and Hagendoorn2007). Recent findings suggest that cultural threats have a consistent and strong effect on hostility to out-groups, while the impact of economic threats is contested (e.g., McLaren and Johnson Reference McLaren and Johnson2007; Velasco González et al. Reference Velasco González, Verkuyten, Weesie and Poppe2008; Malhotra, Margalit and Hyunjung Mo Reference Malhotra, Margalit and Hyunjung Mo2013). Few studies distinguish and investigate the role of a third type of threat—a perception that out-groups are associated with criminality and/or terrorism, and threaten the in-group’s safety (but see, e.g., McLaren and Johnson Reference McLaren and Johnson2007). These distinct threats might not be mutually exclusiveFootnote 1 but investigating the extent to which they influence attitudes toward minorities could yield wider insights for the study of prejudice.
Within this literature, a pioneering study investigated the role of distinct threats in explaining hostility toward minorities in the Netherlands (Sniderman, Hagendoorn and Prior Reference Sniderman, Hagendoorn and Prior2004; henceforth SHP).Footnote 2 The findings, based on a survey conducted in 1997–1998, suggested that perceived cultural threats had “by far the largest impact,” whereas safety threats had the smallest impact and economic threats occupied a middle ground (SHP Reference Sniderman, Hagendoorn and Prior2004, 38). The study has since been widely cited as providing compelling evidence for the claim that cultural threat is a core predictor of hostility toward out-groups and often more so than economic or safety threats (inter alia, Velasco González et al. Reference Velasco González, Verkuyten, Weesie and Poppe2008; Lucassen and Lubbers Reference Lucassen and Lubbers2012; Newman, Hartman and Taber Reference Newman, Hartman and Taber2012; Hjorth Reference Hjorth2016).
The economic and security context of the Netherlands in the late 1990s might explain why economic and safety threats were found to be weaker predictors of hostility toward minorities than cultural threats. The experiments in the Netherlands were undertaken amid relative economic stability and subsequent studies note that the observed importance of cultural threats relied on data that were collected before the arrival of the post-2008 Great Recession (e.g., Valentino, Brader and Jardina Reference Valentino, Brader and Jardina2012; though see Goldstein and Peters Reference Goldstein and Peters2014; Hainmueller and Hopkins Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2015). The SHP study was also conducted before the 2001 “9/11” attacks in the United States and subsequent attacks across Europe such as the 2004 Madrid and “7/7” 2005 London bombings, which arguably contributed to a change in discourse around immigration and an increased likelihood that native citizens would perceive Muslims in particular as a security threat (Freeman, Givens and Leal Reference Freeman, Givens and Leal2009; but see Messina Reference Messina2014). At the same time, cultural threats may still be prominent in explaining hostility, toward Muslim minorities in particular, as perceived differences in culture and religion continue to motivate hostility toward and discrimination of minorities (Velasco González et al. Reference Velasco González, Verkuyten, Weesie and Poppe2008; Adida, Laitin and Valfort Reference Adida, Laitin and Valfort2016).
To what extent then, if at all, does the relative primacy of cultural compared with economic and safety threats remain true under a markedly different national, economic and political context? Since 2008, European states have experienced sharp changes in the surrounding economic and political context. Amid the “Eurozone crisis” several countries recorded a sharp economic downturn and, in some cases, periods of fiscal austerity that could have magnified the role of economic threat in explaining hostility toward minorities. The United Kingdom officially entered recession in late 2008 and from 2010 pursued a sustained government deficit reduction (or “austerity”) program. The economic downturn also coincided with elevated public concern over immigration, which by 2011 was consistently ranked by the electorate as only second to the economy in being the most important issue facing the country, fueled by historically unprecedented levels of net migration.Footnote 3 Against this backdrop, in June 2016, these concerns then assumed a role in the country’s decision at a referendum to leave the EU (or “Brexit;” see Goodwin and Heath Reference Goodwin and Heath2016). Amid this different climate the answer to the question of cultural threats’ relative primacy in explaining hostility toward out-groups is unclear.
In this note we report findings from two studies that replicated the SHP test of the effects of different threats on hostility toward minority groups, but in the United Kingdom amid very different contexts than the original study. The first was conducted in 2011 just prior to the England riots and the second post-Brexit in 2016. Like SHP, we explore the role of cultural, economic and safety threats in explaining hostility toward three distinct minority groups. We focus on black British, Muslims and EU nationals who arrived in the United Kingdom following the accession of Central and East European states in 2004. We also expand on SHP’s research by examining the impact of threat on hostile attitudes from white British toward their own in-group. This allows us to assess the potential impact of a baseline effect of generalized hostility.
Our findings demonstrate how, despite strikingly different national, economic and political contexts, feelings of cultural threat continue to trump economic and safety threats in explaining prejudice toward minority groups. This is a strong confirmation of the centrality of cultural threat in motivating out-group hostility. However, we also find that, in a context of global security concerns, threats to safety have gained prominence. Further, in the distinct post-Brexit climate, increased economic concerns are related to less hostility toward minorities. This seems to suggest that whereas the impact of cultural threat on ethnic prejudice is stable across changing national, economic and political contexts, the impact of safety and economic concerns are context dependent.
Data and Measurement
Our data were obtained from two online surveys undertaken in the United Kingdom between July 11–18, 2011 and July 18–19, 2016 in partnership with YouGov. YouGov relies on a large volunteer opt-in panel of ~360,000 British adults, recruited from different sources (YouGov 2011). Through targeted quota sampling, two nationally reflective sub-samples of 1097 (2011) and 1688 (2016) adults were drawn from this panel. To further ensure the samples reflect the national adult population on key demographics, including levels of internet access, the data were weighted for age, gender, region, social grade, party identification and newspaper readership. We only include white British (85 percent in 2011 and 90 percent in 2016) respondents in the analyses.
In formulating our questions, we largely relied on SHP’s work, adapted to the British context. Details on the survey design, response rates, question wording and descriptive statistics are in Online Appendices A and B.
As our measure of prejudice we use group hostility measures for three prominent minority groups: black British, Muslims and East Europeans. Our measure of group hostility is an index, based on a question asking respondents the extent to which they (dis)agree with eight characterizations of a group as: trustworthy, selfish, law-abiding, intrusive, slackers, violent, complainers and by nature inferior. The 1–4 scores on each item were recoded so that high scores indicate greater hostility, and were averaged for each individual. Hostility from the white British majority toward their own in-group was measured to provide a point of reference for expressed hostility toward the minority out-groups. We would expect individuals with a negative view of their own group to be generally negative in their characterization of and interaction with other groups, and to view the world as a more threatening place. If this is indeed the case, we would expect the magnitude of the estimated effects of threats on hostility toward minority groups to be reduced when taking this more general hostility into account.
To measure perceived economic, cultural and safety threats, we utilize SHP’s decoupled threat measure, which asked: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?”:Footnote 4
∙ “I am afraid of increasing violence and vandalism in my neighbourhood.”
∙ “I am afraid that my own economic prospects will get worse.”
∙ “I am afraid of increasing violence and vandalism in British society.”
∙ “These days, I am afraid that the British culture is threatened.”
∙ “I am afraid that the economic prospects of British society will get worse.”
The answer categories were recoded so that high scores indicate higher threat.
There are a number of socio-demographic and psychological characteristics that are routinely identified as sources of prejudice, and which might also predict threat. Following SHP, we include controls for education (terminal age of education), occupational status (social grade), level of employment (work status), authoritarian values and self-esteem. In addition, we control for respondents’ gender, age and whether they were born in the United Kingdom.
Results
In this section, we present results from our analysis of the role of threats in predicting prejudice toward the three minority groups.Footnote 5 The coefficient estimates and their 95 percent confidence intervals derived from ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions of prejudice on each threat—entered individually—are presented in Figure 1 for both 2011 and 2016.Footnote 6 The regressions also include the socio-demographic and psychological control variables.
Unstandardized ordinary least squares coefficient estimates and 95 percent confidence intervals of the impact of threats on group hostility; threats entered individually Note: Models include control variables (see Online Appendix D, Tables A7A and B). *p<0.05.
The results show a similar ordering in the importance of distinct threats for predicting hostility toward black British, Muslims and East Europeans. In both 2011 and 2016, threat to British culture has the strongest effects on hostility, followed by threats to neighborhood and collective safety. Both have significant effects on hostility toward all three minorities. The largest effect of cultural threat is that on hostility toward Muslims in 2011: a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in cultural threat is predicted to produce a 0.44 SD increase in hostility. The smallest effect for cultural threat is on hostility toward East Europeans in 2011: a 1 SD increase in cultural threat is predicted to produce a 0.31 SD increase in hostility. Compare this to the largest effects for safety threats. The effect of collective safety threat on hostility toward Muslims in 2011 is such that a 1 SD increase in collective safety threat is predicted to produce a 0.22 SD increase in hostility.Footnote 7 In other words, the smallest effect of cultural threat is greater in magnitude than the largest effect of safety threat.Footnote 8
The effects of economic threats are somewhat more nuanced. There were no statistically significant effects in 2011. In 2016, though, those who indicate feelings of individual economic threat are significantly less likely to express hostility toward East European minorities, and those who indicate feelings of collective economic threat are significantly less likely to express hostility toward both Muslim and East European minorities.Footnote 9 The impact of both individual and collective economic threat on hostility toward black British minorities is much smaller and not statistically significant. The largest effect is that of collective economic threat on hostility toward East Europeans in 2016: a 1 SD increase in collective economic threat is predicted to produce a 0.14 SD decrease in hostility. We shall return to the surprising direction of these effects shortly, but note that the effects are substantially smaller in magnitude than those of safety and cultural threats.
Lastly, we find a strong and significant relationship between collective safety threat and hostility toward the white British in-group in 2011. The absence of significant effects of individual safety, cultural and economic threats on hostility toward the white British in-group in 2011 might be due to the relatively large confidence intervals associated with the effects, as we find significant and positive effects of all types of threat in 2016.
Next, we estimate models that include all threats simultaneously to investigate their independent impact on hostility. Due to the possibility that some feelings of threat are associated with a more general hostile view of all people including the in-group, and not just with views of specific minority groups, we examine whether the magnitude of the estimated effect of threat on out-group hostility is reduced when we take hostility toward the white British in-group into account.Footnote 10 In Online Appendix D (Tables A8A and B, and A9A and B), we compare the estimates of models with and without in-group hostility included as a control. In answering this question, we extend SHP’s work. We find that the inclusion of in-group hostility does not alter the substantive conclusions; however, because we believe that a model that takes account of a potential baseline effect is preferable over one that does not, Figure 2 presents the OLS coefficients from the models including all threats while controlling for hostility toward the in-group.
Unstandardized ordinary least squares coefficient estimates and 95 percent confidence intervals of the impact of threats on group hostility; threats entered simultaneously and with hostility toward white British Note: Models include control variables (see Online Appendix D, Tables A9A and B). None of the effects differ significantly between 2011 and 2016 at the 0.05 level.
The results for both 2011 and 2016 underscore the dominance of cultural threat in explaining hostility. Cultural threat continues to be the strongest (and statistically significant) predictor of hostility toward all three minority groups. Consistent with the work of SHP, our results suggest that hostility toward minority groups is motivated chiefly by threats to shared values or ways of life.Footnote 11 This is notable given the markedly different social and economic climate—including recession, fiscal austerity, anxiety over immigration and, in 2016, a national vote to leave the European Union—than that surrounding SHP’s study in late 1990s Netherlands. This finding is especially striking with regards to black British minorities. They have a long history in Britain, first arriving in the 1950s from Commonwealth states, and recent evidence suggests they are better integrated and more accepted (Ford Reference Ford2008). The finding might be less striking with regards to Muslims, given the evidence of widespread Islamophobia in Western Europe (e.g., Adida, Laitin and Valfort Reference Adida, Laitin and Valfort2016, 3–5).
Irrespective of the dominant role of cultural threat, and in contrast to SHP, our results also point to the importance of concerns over increasing rates of violence and vandalism. Threat to neighborhood safety remains significantly related to hostility toward black British minorities in 2011, suggesting that aside from cultural considerations prejudice toward this group may be rooted in concerns over threats to safety. This may be a result of the over-representation of black British youths in news stories on criminality and violence; stories that may have moved to the background in the post-Brexit climate that saw the political debate shift onto questions about Britain’s place in the world, its relations with the EU and economic challenges. However, it is important to note that without any evidence this remains speculation.
The impact of perceptions of increasing violence and vandalism in society on hostility toward the three groups becomes insignificant when we control for other threats, in particular cultural threat. One possible explanation for this finding is that concerns about increasing violence in wider society and feelings of cultural threat might originate from a more general concern about British norms and values.Footnote 12
In the combined models, economic threats continue to have no effects on hostility in 2011 and the impact of concerns about personal finances no longer has a significant impact on hostility toward any minority group in 2016. However, the impact of collective economic threat on hostility toward both Muslim and East European minorities in 2016 remains negative and significant. This is an important difference from the SHP findings. Undertaken during a period of relative economic stability the SHP study suggests economic concerns occupy a middle ground “of more consequence than threats to safety, of less than threats to cultural identity” (Reference Sniderman, Hagendoorn and Prior2004, 38). Despite the wider context of financial crisis and austerity in 2011, when the salience of economic concerns was high, neither individual nor collective economic threats are significant predictors of hostility toward minorities. This is particularly notable for East Europeans given that their increasing presence coincided with the economic downturn. In the post-Brexit context of 2016 it appears that collective economic concerns actually translate into decreased hostility toward Muslim and East European minorities. One possible explanation for this finding is that those with the lowest levels of hostility toward minorities are the same individuals who voted to remain in the EU in the referendum and who bought into the argument that leaving the EU would be highly detrimental to the economy (Kierzenkowski et al. Reference Kierzenkowski, Pain, Rusticelli and Zwart2016). With the referendum result in hand, this same group is now experiencing substantial economic threat. This is speculation and raises important questions about the causal relationship between economic threat and hostility toward minority groups in a post-Brexit Britain, at least in the short run. This negative relationship between economic threat and out-group hostility should be examined in future research but what the result tells us for now is that the effect of economic threat is very context dependent.
Conclusion and Discussion
Feelings of threat, whether based on cultural, economic or safety concerns, are often identified as assuming a central role in explanations of what leads some citizens to express hostility toward minorities. Identifying the relative importance of distinct types of threat on this hostility across different times and places is an important task for the social sciences; one that could shed light on how citizens are navigating rising levels of ethnic and cultural diversity more generally.
In this research note we reported findings replicating, updating and extending SHP’s (Reference Sniderman, Hagendoorn and Prior2004) earlier investigation of the role of threat in motivating prejudice in the Netherlands in the late 1990s—a pre-“9/11” context of relative economic stability and relatively few security concerns. Our study examines the relationship between threat and prejudice amid two very different economic, cultural and security climates in the United Kingdom. Yet, despite the markedly different contexts, our results confirm the strength and permanency of concerns over shared values and ways of life in explaining hostility toward minority groups, compared to concerns about economic prospects or violence. At the same time, we have shown how the environmental context might have an impact on the relative importance of safety and economic threats in explaining ethnic prejudice.
Our study extends the earlier study by controlling for the potential confounding of ethnic prejudice with generalized hostility. We show that some individuals do express hostility toward their own in-group, but that this does not negate our findings. Although we cannot know, this suggests that the SHP study results are robust to the failure to take account of this potential confounding factor. Overall, our results confirm the primacy of cultural threat as the strongest and most consistent predictor of hostility toward minority groups, and demonstrate the impact of the more ephemeral effects of safety and economic threats.
