Different Emotional Reactions to Different Groups: A Sociofunctional Threat-Based Approach to "Prejudice".

TLDR

Traditional views of prejudice as a general attitude obscure the diverse emotional responses people have toward different groups. The study predicts that groups seen as posing distinct threats to in‑group resources or processes will trigger distinct, functionally relevant emotional reactions. Participants’ reactions to a wide array of social groups were collected, yielding a unique dataset of emotional responses and threat beliefs. The results showed that distinct groups produced unique emotion and threat profiles, which were often masked by general prejudice measures, and that specific threat classes were linked to specific, functionally relevant emotions, with groups sharing threat profiles also sharing emotion profiles.

Abstract

The authors suggest that the traditional conception of prejudice--as a general attitude or evaluation--can problematically obscure the rich texturing of emotions that people feel toward different groups. Derived from a sociofunctional approach, the authors predicted that groups believed to pose qualitatively distinct threats to in-group resources or processes would evoke qualitatively distinct and functionally relevant emotional reactions. Participants' reactions to a range of social groups provided a data set unique in the scope of emotional reactions and threat beliefs explored. As predicted, different groups elicited different profiles of emotion and threat reactions, and this diversity was often masked by general measures of prejudice and threat. Moreover, threat and emotion profiles were associated with one another in the manner predicted: Specific classes of threat were linked to specific, functionally relevant emotions, and groups similar in the threat profiles they elicited were also similar in the emotion profiles they elicited.