Does Intergroup Threat Cause Distinct Contact Orientations for High and Low Status Groups?

DOES INTERGROUP THREAT CAUSE DISTINCT CONTACT ORIENTATIONS FOR HIGH AND LOW STATUS GROUPS? By BRIAN M. JOHNSTON Advisor: Demis E. Glasford, PhD A variety of groups, such as White and Latino Americans, predominantly live in segregated clusters. This is evident by looking at demographic data in the U.S., and often occurs in the absence of legal mandates. To explain why segregation occurs, this dissertation developed a theoretical model with hypotheses on how perceiving a threat to ingroup resources could cause segregation behaviors, but with unique behaviors for high and low status groups. Whites (high status) could view Latinos as a threat to jobs, for example, and be motivated to avoid Latinos. Latinos (low status) could similarly view Whites as a threat to jobs, but instead be motivated to approach other Latinos. Further, this model proposed that regulatory focus motivations, such as concern over preventing economic losses (i.e., prevention focus) or promoting economic gains (i.e., promotion focus), would explain group avoidance and approach. Broadly, this model hypothesized that threat perceptions would increase prevention focus for high status groups, and this would explain outgroup avoidance. On the other hand, the model hypothesized that threat perceptions would increase promotion focus for low status groups, and this would explain ingroup approach. This model was tested in two studies that balanced external and internal validity. Study 1 focused on threat perceptions of White and Latino Americans, using a news article to manipulate threat perceptions in an online setting, with self-report measures of regulatory focus and group