Subjective status marginality, not objective SES, drives ethnocentrism

Evidence

In 1954 Else Frenkel-Brunswik wrote a paper called Further Explorations by a Contributor to “The Authoritarian Personality” (Christie & Jahoda, 1954) in which she described an extensive study of prejudice in children and adolescents. In this work there were interviews with parents of children who were extremely high in prejudice and also with parents of children low in prejudice. Frenkel-Brunswik reports that the subjective feeling of socioeconomic “marginality” on the part of the parents rather than their objective SES was the crucial factor in ethnocentrism. A feeling of marginality is said to exist when there is a discrepancy between actual status and the status one aspires to. “Marginality” seems to be much the same as the status concern of the original study. … However, while marginality may be the crucial factor it is evident that Frenkel- Brunswik also found the familiar negative correlation between F scores and SES. She reports a “relatively high percentage of ethnocentric families among the workers…” (p. 233). It is easy to imagine a reconciliation of the two aspects of SES that seem to engender authoritarianism. Perhaps the feeling of marginality is the critical factor but feelings of marginality may be especially likely to arise at the lower end of the SES scale, among the working class. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 638

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to status-anxiety research (status inconsistency, white working-class resentment literature) and the broader line that perceived status threat rather than material position drives prejudice. — connects to: Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2680; Perceived last-place racial status decouples from objective socioeconomic disadvantage. — Erin Cooley, Jazmin L. Brown-Iannuzzi, Nava Caluori, Nicholas Elacqua, and William Cipolli, White Americans who perceive themselves…, 59
• QUESTION: Whether subjective marginality is the true driver and objective SES merely a proxy for it remains an unresolved, testable question.