When Other People Win: The Effects of Group Threat and Narratives on Opinion

• In Event: Poster Session: Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

Abstract

How are people’s policy positions affected when they learn that other racial groups will benefit? Here, I explore the effect of positive and negative information about outgroups on policy opinion. More specifically, I use a conjoint experiment to investigate how information about policy beneficiaries and narratives about group members affect opinion on the minimum wage. I find when people learn that a threatening racial outgroup will disproportionately benefit from an increase in the wage, they feel group threat causing them to select a lower minimum wage for the entire workforce. I also find that narratives about workers generate positive attitudes, which result in respondents setting the wage at a higher level. When narratives and group threat are paired together, the narrative vitiates group threat, thereby positively affecting wage level. Overall, this project shows that while group threat may have negative policy consequences, stories about individuals group members can positively overpower group threat.

Author

• Andrew I Thompson, George Washington University