Perceptions of Racial Group Competition: Extending Blumer's Theory of Group Position to a Multiracial Social Context

Perceptions of threat occupy a central place in race relations in Blumer's theory of prejudice but few direct efforts to study such perceptions exist. Extending Blumer's reasoning, we hypothesize that such perceptions are driven by a group's feelings of racial alienation within the larger social order The more that members of a particular racial group feel collectively oppressed and unfairly treated by society, the more likely they are to...