Group position and the genesis of threat: a sociological revisit of Integrated Threat Theory

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 22. Racialization and reactive ethnicity

Abstract

This paper proposes a sociological revision of Integrated Threat Theory (ITT), arguing that while ITT robustly models how perceived threats exacerbate prejudice against migrants, its foundational causal pathway is incomplete. The author contends that by integrating Blumer’s concept of prejudice as a sense of group position with reference group theory and the V-curve hypothesis of relative deprivation and gratification, a potent reverse causality can be theorized. In this view, prejudice is not merely an outcome of threat but an active component of group identity and status defense that itself manufactures perceptions of symbolic and realistic threat. The analysis synthesizes these frameworks to explain how a pre-existing collective sense of group position—shaped by comparative reference groups and experiences of relative deprivation or anxiety over relative gratification—serves as the precursor to threat perception. This inversion addresses empirical inconsistencies in migration research, where the salience of threat types varies across contexts, by highlighting how divergent group positions and comparative logics shape which threats become salient. The paper concludes that threat perception is a socially constructed fact, rooted in the defense of hierarchical group positions, and calls for future research to further elaborate the genesis of threat within this sociological framework.

Author

• René Rosado González, The Chinese University of Hong Kong