Individual and collective self-esteem predict threat perception in opposite directions.

Evidence

It is also likely that both individual self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) and collective selfesteem (Crocker & Schwartz, 1985; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) are related to predispositions to perceive threats, but in opposite ways. Low individual self-esteem makes people susceptible to experiencing threats from outgroups because people with low self-esteem, relative to people with high self-esteem, are likely to be less confident that they can deal with threats (McFarlin & Blascovich, 1981). We should note, however, that the actual experience of threat may be particularly aversive to people high in individual self-esteem, who have a strong need to maintain their positive self-image (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). With regard to collective self-esteem, or people’s feelings of attachment to the ingroup (Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990), high collective self-esteem should lead to the greatest perceptions of threat because it is these individuals who care most about what happens to their group and its members. — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 15

Categorization

• XREF: Links to terror management theory and self-esteem maintenance literature from social psychology.

Related

• Self-esteem needs predict extremism only through collective, not personal, mechanisms (similarity 0.84)
• Groups elicit more fear and appear more threatening than individuals. (similarity 0.82)
• Individual threat evokes fear while group threat evokes anger (similarity 0.81)
• Equal-status group threat effects remain unexplored (similarity 0.81)
• Group-level and individual-level threats are experienced independently by the same person. (similarity 0.81)
• Groups are judged more threatening than the individuals composing them (similarity 0.81)
• Intergroup prejudice and self-esteem serve the same underlying need to deny death. (similarity 0.80)
• Group esteem threats may combine multiplicatively with realistic threats. (similarity 0.80)
• Group esteem threat can spill attitudes onto unrelated outgroups (similarity 0.79)
• Group membership makes collective moral failures threaten personal self-esteem. (similarity 0.79)
• Meta-analysis across studies quantifies how distinct intergroup threat types relate to outgroup attitudes. (similarity 0.79)
• Intergroup threat and negative outgroup attitudes relate bidirectionally, not one-way. (similarity 0.79)
• Uncertain, unfamiliar, low-power settings maximize perceived outgroup threat. (similarity 0.79)
• Group threats act through intergroup emotions to reach outgroup attitudes. (similarity 0.79)
• Threat amplifies preexisting intergroup responses rather than creating them (similarity 0.79)