Intergroup threat susceptibility is predictable from personality and background traits

Evidence

Thus, the people who are most susceptible to feeling threatened by outgroups are those who are insecure, suspicious, fear death, are inexperienced with outgroups, are strongly drawn to their ingroups, desire an ordered society, and support social inequality. Using these criteria, lower echelon members of the all-volunteer American military who are sent abroad might be expected to experience high levels of threat. — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 330

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the author’s prior chapters on predictors of threat; also echoes the authoritarian-trait literature (Adorno, Altemeyer). — connects to: the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: Ours, True, and the Identity That Defends Both”
• CANDY: The specific claim that deployed rank-and-file soldiers fit all the threat-proneness criteria is a striking, quotable observation.

Related

• Lower-echelon volunteers sent abroad meet nearly every condition for high perceived threat. (similarity 0.87)
• Uncertain, unfamiliar, low-power settings maximize perceived outgroup threat. (similarity 0.82)
• Threat-driven cognitive biases facilitate and justify intergroup violence (similarity 0.78)