The effects of racial status threat on White Americans’ support for Donald Trump: Results of five experimental tests

Abstract

Prior theory and research suggest that threats to the status of White Americans may increase support for Donald Trump. Consistent with this, one previous experiment conducted in early 2016 documented this effect (Major et al., 2018), finding that making salient the declining White majority in the United States increased support for Trump’s presidential candidacy among White participants with high levels of ethnic identification. We report the results of five very similar experiments (total N = 3,076) also conducted in 2016, including one conducted on a national probability sample. The first experiment (conducted in January 2016) found that racial status threat increased Whites’ support for Trump. The other four (conducted from February to October 2016), however, all found null results, and an internal meta-analysis of the five studies found no significant main effect overall. Additionally, none of the studies found an interaction of racial demographic shift and ethnic identification in which racial demographic shift increased Trump support among high-identifying Whites. We conclude by discussing a variety of potential explanations for our findings, including (a) that racial status threats did not increase Whites’ Trump support, (b) that racial status threats increased Trump support early in the 2016 election cycle, but the role of this factor in Trump support declined over time, or (c) that this pattern is an example of a broader tendency of declining experimental treatment effects on candidate support over time in campaigns (Kalla & Broockman, 2018).

Privilege lost: How dominant groups react to shifts in cultural primacy and power

“…Despite finding that variables such as SDO, group threat, and the endorsement of legitimizing myths each predicted greater perceived discrimination against their own dominant group (i.e., White Americans or men), there was little (or mixed) evidence regarding SDO x Threat interactions. In contrast to some of the other papers in the Special Issue (e.g., Domen, Scheepers, Derks and van Veelen 2022; Earle & Hodson, 2022;Knowles, Tropp and Mogami 2022;Stefaniak & Wohl, 2022), but in keeping with others (e.g., Stewart & Willer, 2022), threat effects in this project were not moderated by individual differences.…”

“…There remain, of course, challenges for the field, beyond simply the rather salient need to expand beyond the heavy US focus in this line of inquiry. For instance, it appears that some basic racial shift findings from the past (e.g., Major et al, 2018) might not be as easily reproduced in current times (e.g., Stewart & Willer, 2022). Arguably, the political landscape in the US and abroad has altered radically since 2015, meaning that new dynamics might be at play.…”

Reclaiming the Past to Transcend the Present: Nostalgic Appeals in U.S. Presidential Elections

“…2018; Parker 2021; Willer et al. 2016; but see Stewart and Willer 2022). The anticipation of further decreases in the group's numerical majority has an implied temporal converse: in earlier historical periods, whites' dominance was less tentative.…”

“…This integrative function of nostalgia points to its second feature: it may help activate the white majority's out-group resentments by highlighting shifts in the relative positions of racial and ethnic groups within the nation's status hierarchy (Bobo, 1999), and particularly, the potential loss of dominant status by the white majority (Smeekes et al, 2015). As scholars have documented, increasing the salience of demographic change, for instance, heightens whites' perception of status threat (Abascal, 2020;Craig and Richeson, 2014;Danbold and Huo, 2015;Outten et al, 2012), thereby bolstering their support for radical-right movements and candidates (Bai and Federico 2021;Major et al 2018;Willer et al 2016; but see Stewart and Willer 2021). The anticipation of further decreases in the group's numerical majority has an implied temporal converse: in earlier historical periods, whites' dominance was less tentative.…”

Perceived status threat and health among White Americans: A scoping review

“…Empirical evidence supports the suggestions of racial threat theory in contemporary White society. For example, White American support for the presidency of Donald Trump, who explicitly used racist rhetoric and notions of White status threat ( Kaufmann, 2019 ; Khan et al, 2021 ), was widespread across gender, class, and age groups in 2016 and 2020 ( Major et al, 2016 ; Stewart & Willer, 2022 ). “Othering” narratives about people of color reify the notion that racially minoritized groups pose a potential threat to White Americans.…”