Integrated Threat Theory

Abstract

Despite rises in immigration and attempts to manage immigration, anti-immigrant threat and prejudice remains a major concern at the individual and societal levels, and often surfaces as a key political, economic, and social issue. Research shows anti-immigrant prejudice is widepread. One of the explanatory factors for widespread anti-immigrant attitudes is threat perception. Attitudes towards immigrants and immigration have become less positive amidst the outbreak of the current refugee crises in Europe. This can lead to many anti-immigration demonstrations and to anti-immigration sentiment. Many nonimmigrants worry about the economic burden immigrants pose to society and the potential danger immigrants represent to the dominant culture and society. Overall, research shows that believing people from other cultures are a threat to one’s own culture and survival leads to prejudice and discrimination. Stephan and Stephan’s integrated threat theory (ITT) offers an explanation to these feelings of threat. ITT proposes that prejudice and negative attitudes towards immigrants and out-groups is explained by four types of threats: realistic threat, symbolic threat, negative stereotype, and intergroup anxiety. Realistic threats are to the physical well-being and the economic and political power of the in-group; symbolic threats arise due to cultural differences in values, morals, and worldview of the out-group; negative stereotypes arise from negative stereotypes the in-group has about the out-group; and intergroup anxiety refers to anxiety the in-group experiences in the process of interaction with members of the out-group, especially when both groups have had a history of antagonism.