Lower-echelon volunteers sent abroad meet nearly every condition for high perceived threat.
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. They usually lack experience with and knowledge of other cultures, they have a commitment to hierarchical military command structures, they have been trained to be wary, they have reason to fear for their lives, and they typically have a strong espirit de corps. — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 16
Categorization
- SEED: An article angle: why the enlisted American military experience is a natural laboratory for intergroup threat — the institutional design programs precisely the antecedent variables the theory predicts produce threat.