Perceptions of Racial Group Competition: Extending Blumer's Theory of Group Position to a Multiracial Social Context

TLDR

Blumer’s theory places threat perceptions at the core of race relations, yet few studies have examined them directly, and growing immigration and internal migration have turned U.S. cities into multiracial conglomerations that raise concerns about whether diverse groups see each other as competitors for scarce resources. The study hypothesizes that racial alienation drives group threat perceptions and investigates whether these perceptions arise from self‑interest, prejudice, or broader beliefs about social stratification and inequality. Using data from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, a large multiracial sample, the authors analyze the distribution and social and psychological underpinnings of perceived group competition.

Abstract

Perceptions of threat occupy a central place in race relations in Blumer's theory of prejudice but few direct efforts to study such perceptions exist. Extending Blumer's reasoning, we hypothesize that such perceptions are driven by a group's feelings of racial alienation within the larger social order The more that members of a particular racial group feel collectively oppressed and unfairly treated by society, the more likely they are to perceive members of other groups as potential threats. We also examine whether such perceptions spring from simple self-interest, orthodox prejudice such as negative feelings and stereotyping, or broad beliefs about social stratification and inequality. We use data from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, a large multiracial sample of the general population, to analyze the distribution and social and psychological underpinnings of perceived group competition. Our results support the racial alienation hypothesis as well as the hypotheses positing effects for self-interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs. We argue that Blumer's group-position framework offers the most parsimonious integration and interpretation of the social psychological processes involved in the formation of perceptions of group threat and competition. O ) ngoing immigration from Asia and Latin America and the earlier internal migration of African Americans out of the rural South have made most large cities in the United States remarkable multiracial conglomerations (Waldinger 1989). An immediate sociological concern raised by the growing heterogeneity of urban areas is whether members of different groups view one another as direct competitors for scarce economic, political, and social resources (Olzak 1993). Such perceptions may influ