Leiden University Student Repository

Hilgevoord, Vera V.W. (2022)

What Drives Prejudice? Testing the Interaction Between Threat Sensitivity and Political Ideology in Predicting Intergroup Prejudice

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

This paper builds upon previous studies that have identified many factors that contribute to prejudice, including situational and personality factors. However, thus far there has been no investigation whether individual differences in threat sensitivity can interact with political ideology to predict a person’s degree of prejudice. This work seeks to fill in this gap by examining this relation. It was hypothesized that the relation between threat sensitivity and prejudice would be moderated by political ideology. Specifically, individuals would show greater prejudice against groups holding an opposing worldview, and this would be amplified for people with a higher (versus lower) threat sensitivity. This hypothesis was tested in an online survey, with British participants (N = 200). Contrary to our prediction, the results indicate no significant interaction effect of threat sensitivity and political ideology on prejudice. Further research on threat sensitivity and political ideology...Show moreThis paper builds upon previous studies that have identified many factors that contribute to prejudice, including situational and personality factors. However, thus far there has been no investigation whether individual differences in threat sensitivity can interact with political ideology to predict a person’s degree of prejudice. This work seeks to fill in this gap by examining this relation. It was hypothesized that the relation between threat sensitivity and prejudice would be moderated by political ideology. Specifically, individuals would show greater prejudice against groups holding an opposing worldview, and this would be amplified for people with a higher (versus lower) threat sensitivity. This hypothesis was tested in an online survey, with British participants (N = 200). Contrary to our prediction, the results indicate no significant interaction effect of threat sensitivity and political ideology on prejudice. Further research on threat sensitivity and political ideology is needed to investigate whether and how it may affect prejudice.Show less

Intergroup Prejudice

Prejudice

Threat Sensitivity

Political Ideology

Bob paradigm

Worldview

Author

Hilgevoord, Vera V.W.

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Economic and Consumer Psychology

Supervisors

Ruisch, B.C. + Scheepers, D.T.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en