Successful, competent minorities competing with the dominant group are the most likely scapegoats.

Evidence

The stereotype content model (see Fiske, ch. 3 this volume) suggests which groups are likely to be scapegoated. This model states that the structural relations between groups – their relative status and type of interdependence (competitive or cooperative) – determine the content of group stereotypes. High status or powerful (e.g., socioeconomically successful) minorities that are viewed as competing with the dominant group are subjected to envious prejudice: they are admired for their success, but also resented for it; stereotyped as highly competent, but as having hostile motives. Because envied minorities are viewed as having the power and intent to harm, they are at risk of being blamed for causing group-level frustrations. Additionally, a sense of relative deprivation (Runciman, 1966) can play into the scapegoating of successful minorities, who may be perceived as being less affected by or even as benefiting from the suffering endured by the ingroup, inflaming resentment and lending plausibility to the belief that the scapegoated group intentionally brought about the ingroup’s misfortunes. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1585

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the vault’s prejudice-psychology claims and gives the stereotype content model as the scapegoat-selection mechanism Allport found missing. — connects to: Envied high-status groups are blamed for their position via perceived control over success. — Susan T. Fiske et al., A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype…, 258
• SEED: The finding that scapegoats must be perceived as powerful and successful rather than weak overturns intuitive victimization assumptions — a natural essay on who actually gets blamed.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1585