A Threat-Emotion Profile Approach to Explaining Active Versus Passive Harm in Intergroup Relations

In: Social psychology, Volume 45, Issue 5, p. 399-407

Abstract

Research on the sociofunctional threat approach illustrates that people have distinct emotional reactions to different forms of threat from outgroups, such that there are distinct threat-emotion profiles. Drawing on emotion-appraisal theory, the present research investigated whether three threat-emotion profiles (obstacle-anger, contamination-disgust, and safety-fear) would be differentially related to active versus passive harm. In two studies, participants were randomly assigned to evaluate different outgroups and completed threat, emotion, and harm measures. Whereas the obstacle-anger profile was more likely to be associated with active, but not passive, harm, contamination-disgust, and safety-fear were more likely to be associated with passive harm. Implications for prejudice and prejudice-reduction are discussed.