522 Prejudice, Racism, and Discrimination
dominant ones in human societies around the world. As such,
its advocates claim that SDT complements and integrates the-
ories of prejudice focusing on the individual, such as the
right-wing authoritarianism theory (see Altemeyer, 1996;
Whitley, 1999), and those focusing on the role of social struc-
ture and elites, such as Marxism, as well as providing a
theoretical bridge between these micro and macro levels of
analysis.
Proponents of SDT have also noted some differences be-
tween their perspective and other theories of prejudice and
racism. Sidanius et al. (1999) suggested that symbolic racism
is limited to focusing on racism toward Black Americans in
one historical and cultural context (viz., the United States
in the late 20th century), whereas SDT claims a much wider
historical and cross-cultural focus as well as a broader sweep
regarding oppressed groups around the world to which it pre-
sumably applies. In fact, however, some evidence suggests
that U.S.-derived measures of prejudice, especially blatant
and subtle prejudice, work as well in Europe as they do in the
United States (Pettigrew et al., 1998). Similarly, while sym-
bolic and modern racism theories focus on values such as in-
dividualism and the Protestant ethic, SDT instead emphasizes
antiegalitarianism as crucial to prejudice.
Its proponents also suggest that SDT complements inter-
group theories, such as social identity theory (SIT), by taking
into account the attitudes and behaviors of subordinate group
members as well as those from the dominant group, focusing
on out-group derogation as well as in-group favoritism, and
differentiating status and power in intergroup relations. In-
deed, researchers have profitably used both SDT and SIT (e.g.,
Levin & Sidanius, 1999; Levin, Sidanius, Rabinowitz, &
Federico, 1998) to yield insights into intergroup processes,
such as the relationship between in-group identification and
SDO in high-status versus low-status groups in a society.
Clearly, SDT is presently one of the most prominent and
promising contemporary theories of prejudice, and the SDO
measure is apt to become a scale of choice among those who
wish to use an explicit prejudice measure instead of, or along
with, implicit prejudice measures.
Integrated Threat Theory
Without claiming to incorporate all possible causes of preju-
dice, Walter Stephan, Cookie Stephan, and their colleagues
have nevertheless proposed that threat is certainly one major
class of its causes and arguably its principal one. Their inte-
grated threat theory (ITT) identifies and combines four major
types of threat that they and other investigators have previ-
ously documented as relevant to understanding and pre-
dicting prejudice: (a) realistic threats, (b) symbolic threats,
(c) intergroup anxiety, and (d) stereotyping (e.g., Stephan &
Stephan, 1996; Stephan, Ybarra, & Bachman, 1999). Al-
though other theories and investigators have emphasized one
or another of these threats, the Stephans and their associates
provide a distinctive twist or interpretation of each threat in
the overall context of ITT.
Realistic threats include any perceived threats from an-
other group to the welfare, well-being, or survival of one’s in-
group and its members. Symbolic threats are perceived group
differences in beliefs, values, or norms that may threaten the
in-group’s way of life. Unlike symbolic racism, ITT’s sym-
bolic threats apply to a wider array of groups, both dominant
and subordinate, and to value differences in general, rather
than those typifying only U.S. society, such as the Protestant
ethic. The intergroup anxiety construct derives from prior
research by Stephan and Stephan (1985), referring to the neg-
ative emotions occurring when one interacts with members of
another group, especially an antagonistic or competitive out-
group. Beliefs about the characteristics of groups and the traits
of group members (i.e., stereotypes) constitute yet another
threat by creating expectancies about the type of interactions
that can be anticipated with out-group members, with negative
expectancies reflecting prejudice. Finally, in addition to the
four types of threat, ITT also assumes that the history and na-
ture of prior contact between groups (e.g., negative, positive,
or mixed) and the status of groups relative to one another also
needs to be taken into account for predicting prejudice.
Immigrants are assumed by ITT to elicit all four types of
threat in members of immigrant-receiving societies, such
as the United States, Spain, and Israel. For that reason, atti-
tudes toward immigrant groups have figured prominently as a
criterion of particular interest in ITT research. Using samples
of university students at several locales throughout the United
States, Stephan, Ybarra, and Bachman (1999) showed that all
four threats were relevant for predicting prejudice toward
Cubans (in Miami), Mexicans (in New Mexico), and Asians
(in Hawaii), accounting for 50% or more of the variance in at-
titudes toward each of these different immigrant groups.
Stephan, Ybarra, Martinez, Schwarzwald, and Tur-Kaspa
(1998) likewise showed that each of the four threats was a
reliable predictor of attitudes held by Spanish university stu-
dents toward Moroccan immigrants and by Israeli students
toward Ethiopian and Russian immigrants to Israel.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses by Stephan
et al. (1998) indicated that the four threats comprised a single,
unitary dimension of threat. Schwarzwald and Tur-Kaspa
(1997) showed that realistic, symbolic, and interpersonal
threats were significant predictors of Israeli university stu-
dents’ attitudes toward Ethiopian and Russian immigrants,
whereas individual differences in SDO predicted prejudice