Uncertainty, disadvantage, and competition in a setting amplify perceived threat.

Evidence

The situations most likely to create perceptions of threat are those in which people are uncertain how to behave, are in unfamiliar settings, believe they are outnumbered and “outgunned” (have lower power than the other group), feel unsupported by authority figures, and are competing against an outgroup that can harm them or has threatened to do so. For example, minority group members who work in a factory owned and dominated by the majority group would be likely to feel threatened because the situational factors put them at such a disadvantage. They are at a disadvantage both numerically and in terms of power, they are competing with majority group members for advancement, they are unlikely to feel supported by the majority group management, and they may face harassment or even physical violence on the job. — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 13

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Entrepreneurship, polarization, and rising uncertainty drive violence escalation across a boundary — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 773; Conformist transmission is triggered by difficulty, uncertainty, and stakes

Related

• Uncertain, unfamiliar, low-power settings maximize perceived outgroup threat. (similarity 0.90)
• Conformist transmission is triggered by difficulty, uncertainty, and stakes (similarity 0.87)
• Low power groups feel more threat; high power groups react harder to it (similarity 0.82)
• Ideologies and situational threats mutually reinforce each other in producing perceived competition (similarity 0.80)
• Threat shifts supposedly stable ideological dispositions like authoritarianism (similarity 0.80)
• Groups are judged more threatening than the individuals composing them (similarity 0.79)
• Equal-status group threat effects remain unexplored (similarity 0.79)
• Groups elicit more fear and appear more threatening than individuals. (similarity 0.79)
• Threat dynamics among status-equal groups remain unexamined. (similarity 0.79)
• Group-level and individual-level threats are experienced independently by the same person. (similarity 0.78)
• Threat amplifies preexisting intergroup responses rather than creating them (similarity 0.78)
• Fear-driven groups become the very threat they fear (similarity 0.78)