Different Minority Groups Elicit Different Safety, Economic, Power, and Symbolic Threats

1 Introduction

Intergroup threat theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000; Stephan et al., 2009) assumes that contact between the majority (in-group) and the minority (out-group) is often perceived as a threat by both social groups. Stephan and Renfro (2002) determined a two-factor model of intergroup threats: (1) realistic threats that threaten physical, economic, or political well-being; and (2) symbolic threats that threaten the values, culture, and beliefs of the in-group. Symbolic threats can be explained by social identity theory (hereafter SIT) and realistic threats by the theory of realistic group conflict (Meltzer et al., 2017). SIT presupposes that the in-group may have negative attitudes toward out-groups that do not conform to their values (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Realistic group conflict theory assumes that the majority perceive members of other groups to be competitors threatening general social welfare, which leads to hostility toward them (LeVine & Campbell, 1972). Although symbolic and realistic threats are the most prevailing, Cottrell and Neuberg (2005) stressed that different groups pose different profiles of several specific threats to the in-group.

Possible consequences of threat perception are negative attitudes, emotions, prejudices, intolerance, dehumanization, and negative behavior (Stephan & Stephan, 2017). It also turned out that prejudice reduction is not effective when the perceived threats are high (Urbiola et al., 2018). Based on the findings of López-Rodríguez et al. (2014), the majority’s perceptions of different social groups related to stereotypes and perceived threat are distinct. Whereas the perception of threats can lead to prejudice and discriminatory behavior, it is important to know their specifics. Therefore, we map the content and type of these threats in more detail.

2 Methods

Participants. There were an overall sample of 1370 participants (aged from 18 to 75) who gave informed consent before participating in online panels. Respondents were recruited by snowball sampling, i.e., acquaintances reached out their acquaintances via social networks and e-mail. The call for survey participation included the scope of examining the perception of the specific minority group. Each participant formed associations in relation to the perceived threat from one social group only. Before data analysis, those who had a self-declared ethnicity other than Slovak were excluded. The final sample consisted of 1244 Slovak adults (301 men, 938 women, 5 identified as other), M_age = 26.9, SD = 9.31, specifically 427 participants in the group “threat from Roma people”, 484 participants in the group “threat from Muslim people”, and 333^[1] participants in the group “threat from Slovak Hungarians”. Most of the participants had high school diploma (60.6%), followed by university diploma (37.6%), and only a few participants had primary school (1%) or apprentice/high school without a diploma (0.8%).

Measures, procedure, and analysis. Data collection was carried out online between September and November 2021. The free association method was used. In psychoanalysis, this method is used to ascertain the contents of consciousness and to detect unconscious processes and within contemporary experimental psychology free association are defined as means of ascertaining people’s subjective conceptions of the world (Joffe & Elsey, 2014). However, already in the middle of the last century free associations were supposed to be an expression of individual evaluation and emotion (Woodworth & Schlosberg, 1954). Participants had to write the first five associations that came to mind when reading the phrase (1) “threat from Roma people”, (2) “threat from Muslim people”, or (3) “threat from Slovak Hungarians”, in other words, each participant formed associations in relation to the perceived threat from one social group only. The free association task was part of a larger questionnaire focusing on intergroup contact, intergroup threat, attitudes, and discriminatory tendencies. However, the complex modelling of the relationships between contact, threats, attitudes, and discriminatory tendencies requires a separate article. Before the respondents filled the panel survey, they gave an informed consent, and at the end of the panel we left a contact to both researchers in case of feelings of anxiety or additional questions about the survey. As the survey panels were quite long, we motivated participants to took part in research by appropriate incentives, they could win 10-and 20-Euro bookstore vouchers by drawing lots after data collection. The research was approved by the ethical commission of Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Atlas.ti 8 was used to obtain quantitative data, such as the number of associations and the frequency of each association. Subsequently, associations were coded by two coders (authors) using directed content analysis which allows researchers to create new categories, also to rely on existing theory (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Codes are the associations themselves, with synonyms and very similar terms representing the same code (e.g., “restriction of women’s rights” and “non-respect of women’s rights”). Although the codes have been merged into first-order and second-order categories inductively (see Appendix), we still had in mind existing threat types according to intergroup threat theories (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Stephan & Renfro, 2002). Therefore, it is hard to define sharp boundaries between inductive and deductive methodology (Braun & Clarke, 2021). We included comparison between authors’ impressions of the data, so the independent researcher identification of categories was followed by a discussion of overlaps and divergences to reach consistency (Thomas & Harden, 2008).

3 Results

Even though participants were specifically asked to formulate associations related to perceived threats from minorities, four basic groups of associations emerged: (1) threats from the minority, (2) no perceived threats, (3) expressions about majority’s prejudices against the minority, and (4) unclassified associations. The total number of associations was 3637. Of these, 2900 were associations regarding threats (e.g., “robbery”, “abuse of women”), 273 concerned the lack of threat perception (e.g., “I can’t think of anything”, “no threat”), 208 were expressions about majority’s prejudice against the minority (e.g., “prejudices”, “racism”), and 205 were not clearly classifiable (e.g., “east”, “doubt”). We analyzed only the threats from the minorities that correspond to the aim of the study. This category had the most associations percentage-wise (Roma minority: 1121 of 1378–81% of the associations; Muslim minority: 1249 of 1511–83% of the associations; Hungarian minority: 530 of 748–70% of the associations).

Regarding the perceived threats from the Roma minority (illustrated in Figure 1), the biggest category is safety threat, which comprises the following subcategories: theft (29% within a given category^[2]), violence (28%), vandalism (16%), aggression (14%), harassment (9%), verbal threat (6%), rioting (4%), rape (3%), animal cruelty (3%), crime (3%), and sexual harassment and violence against women (1%). The second biggest threat category was negative behavior, which contains addictive substances (29%), shouting and noise (24%), rude behavior (19%), and lying (12%). The next threat category, economic threat, consists of social benefits (75%), and unwillingness to work (25%). Hygienic threat contains dirt and lack of hygiene (78%), and diseases (22%). All these threats can be included under realistic, and at the same time, negative behavior and the hygienic threat are most similar to the safety threat, as they threaten the safety and health of the majority. Another threat was lack of education, and the least represented category was overpopulation. They are problematic to categorize into realistic or symbolic categories as they may relate to every kind of threat. For example, overpopulation may affect cultural patterns and may also endanger people in terms of safety, economics, and power.

Figure 1:

Perceived threats from Roma people (N = 427). Note. The chart presents the percentage of each threat type perceived from Roma people, together making up 100 percent.

Regarding the Muslim minority, the most represented perceived threat type is safety threat (see Figure 2), consisting of terrorism (69%), violence (18%), rape (5%), violence against women (3%), aggression (2%), harassment (1%), theft (1%), and abduction (1%). Symbolic threat has the subcategories of Islamic faith (62%), threat to Slovak culture (17%), and religious extremism (21%). The third largest threat is power threat, which contains oppression of women and suppression of women’s rights (59%), and general oppression (41%). The two smallest categories are threat of migration and economic threat, which was represented by abuse of social benefits.

Figure 2:

Perceived threats from Muslim people (N = 484). Note. The chart presents the percentage of each threat type perceived from Muslim people, together making up 100 percent.

In the case of the Hungarian minority (see Figure 3), the most represented category is power threat, which consists of loss of territory (repetition of history) (31%), ethnic oppression and autonomy (29%), political power (25%), superiority (11%), and ethnic extremism (4%). The second biggest category is symbolic threat and comprises Hungarianization (59%), threat to Slovak culture (22%), and language barrier (19%). Safety threat, represented by violence, and economic threat were additional threats.

Figure 3:

Perceived threat from ethnic Hungarians (N = 333). Note. The chart presents the percentage of each threat type perceived from ethnic Hungarians, together making up 100 percent.

4 Discussion

While realistic and symbolic threats have a strong negative effect on intergroup attitudes, it is crucial to understand the specific nature of the perceived threats. Our findings support the existence of two basic threat categories: realistic and symbolic (Stephan & Renfro, 2002). Importantly, the results revealed that among all three minorities realistic threats prevail over symbolic ones. The results also confirm that realistic threat can be further broken down into economic and safety threats (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). Moreover, we explored power threat, as a new type of realistic threat. Even though the power threat thesis was postulated in the 1960s by Blalock (1960, 1967, he defined it as a competition over economic resources and competition for political power. Our data suggest that power threat should be treated as a separate, distinct category from economic competition, and includes not just political power, but also (national) oppression, restricting the rights of women, or the possible loss of territory. Further, our results indicate hygienic threat and negative behavior to be other relevant threat types perceived from the Roma minority, which can be included in realistic threats.

Percentage-wise the most represented category is safety threat, which occurs in more than half of the associations relating to the Roma minority, and more than two-thirds of the associations relating to Muslims, and less than 7% relating to Slovak Hungarians. Safety threat perceived from the Roma minority is in line with the portrayal of Roma as people who need to be kept under control because of their violent behavior (Lášticová et al., 2020). The most represented subcategories of safety threat were “theft”, mainly petty theft, and “violence” in general or attacking people, in concert with Kalfirtová (2017). Another subcategory that was often mentioned was “vandalism” which is manifested in the destruction of property and demolition of flats, and “aggression”, in public, in the form of fights or being aggressive as a person. “Harassment”, either physical or verbal appeared quite often as well and included begging, annoying people on streets, provocation, swearing, verbal attacks, vulgarity, and so forth. Some of these categories have been previously found (Kalfirtová, 2017; Mares, 2017). As a new safety threat type, perceived violence against women, from “sexual harassment” to “rape”, was also associated with Roma people. Gender stereotypes of women’s inferiority among Roma can therefore pose a threat to the majority population.

Although safety threat dominated in relation to the Muslim minority as well, the meaning was quite different. Consistent with the most common discourses and portrayals of the Muslim minority in East-Central Europe (Dixon & Williams, 2015). Muslim people are associated with terrorism, crime, and rape. The subcategory “terrorism” was dominant and included terrorist attacks, bombing, weapons, the Taliban, ISIS, assassinations, suicides, the attack on the Twin Towers. Statements about “violence” concerned violent behavior, murder, and inflicting harm. This finding is in line with the findings of [Authors, 2021] showing that young Slovaks perceive Muslim people as a safety threat mainly, especially in relation to terrorism and criminality. “Rape” and “violence against women” (sexual harassment, abuse, beatings) also appeared. It is in line with media construct narrative of “grooming gangs” where men are involved in organized sexual abuse of white women (Cockbain & Tufail, 2020).

In contrast to previous two ethnic groups, ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia were less frequently seen as a safety threat. Perceived safety threat was mainly related to violent or aggressive behavior at football matches. As tensions between Slovaks and ethnic Hungarians are non-violent in nature (excluding the odd fight between the ethnic Hungarian and Slovak football clubs), it is not surprising that safety threats were represented less frequently than in the other two ethnic groups.

The most frequent type of threat from the Hungarian minority is power threat. This result is worth highlighting, as to our knowledge, power threat has not previously been measured as a separate type of threat. When examined, power threats have been considered a realistic threat (e.g., Stephan et al., 2002). Perceptions of power threat from the Hungarian minority contains subcategories that correspond to the portrayal of ethnic Hungarians in studies of Benkovičová (1995) and Lajčáková et al. (2011). It includes “loss of territory” (repetition of history), basically the fear of losing territory in southern Slovakia, border changes, Hungarian occupation of territory, and historical events relating to the border changes in Slovakia. Another category is “ethnic oppression and autonomy”, ranging from promoting Hungarian interests to oppressing Slovak people and restricting their rights, as described in Gallová Kriglerová and Kadlečíková (2009).

On the contrary, regarding the Muslim minority, associations relating to power threats mainly referred to the “oppression of women and suppression of their rights” (disrespect, discrimination, oppression, humiliation etc.) and accounted for about 10%. According to Kalmar (2018), oppression of women is among the most common discourses on Muslim people in East-Central Europe. The category of power threat did not occur in relation to the Roma minority.

Surprisingly, economic threat was relatively rare and occurred mostly in relation to the Roma minority. It contained social benefits and unwillingness to work (in line with Kende et al., 2021; Loveland & Popescu, 2016). Both blatant stereotyping (i.e., criminality, laziness) and the perception of Roma receiving undeserved benefits (Kende et al., 2021) were widely associated with them, in accordance with the political rhetoric (Lajčáková et al., 2011).

The other big threat category–symbolic threat – also emerged (Stephan & Stephan, 2000; Stephan & Renfro, 2002). Percentage-wise, symbolic threat occurred quite often (more than a third) in associations about Slovak Hungarians and was represented in almost 20% of the Muslim associations but did not occur in relation to the Roma minority. Most of the associations relating to ethnic Hungarians concerned language-related threats (in line with the findings of Bordás et al., 1995; Gallová Kriglerová & Kadlečíková, 2009). The “Hungarianization” threat was expressed as fear of spreading Hungarian language, compulsory Hungarian in schools, the suppression of Slovak language, and Hungarian street and city names. Moreover, the “language barrier” was also mentioned, in terms of not wanting to learn Slovak, the inability to speak Slovak, poor knowledge of Slovak, or having a “foreign” accent. Another symbolic threat category was the “threat to Slovak culture”, represented by cultural differences, the threat to Slovak customs and traditions, loss of Slovak identity, and oppression of Slovak culture and symbols.

The symbolic threat from Muslim people was perceived as otherness, or fear of “Islamic faith”. This category was broad and included concerns about Sharia, jihad, Islamism, and mosques. It corresponds to the rhetoric that the laws and morals of Islam are dangerous and incompatible with Christian values ​​and morals (Croucher, 2013). Some statements were about Muslims as a “threat to Slovak culture” and representations of “religious extremism” were often described in terms of fundamentalism, fanaticism, extremism, and religious attacks, in line with media portrayals of Muslims (Krekó et al., 2019). Given the absence of cultural recognition for Roma people (Kende et al., 2021), it is not surprising that there was no symbolic threat from Roma people.

Unexpectedly, a new category of realistic threat – negative or problematic behavior – was found only in relation to the Roma minority. This threat does not pose an immediate physical threat; however, it is still similar to safety threats. Negative or problematic behavior category contains “shouting and noise” mainly in public (in accordance with Kalfirtová, 2017; Mares, 2017), “liars” and fraudsters (in line with Loveland & Popescu, 2016), inappropriate, indecent, “rude behavior”, and the use of “addictive substances” (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes).

This study appears to be the first to identify a hygienic threat. It relates to perceptions of the Roma minority and includes “dirt and lack of hygiene” expressed as dirt, stink, garbage, and poor hygiene. The “diseases” category (e.g., spread of diseases, infectious diseases, tuberculosis) comes under this threat type too. This category is like the group health threat of contagion as defined by Cottrell and Neuberg (2005) who described it in terms of threats from gay men.

The findings of this study have several implications. As the majority population perceive every ethnic minority differently (different threat types and their content), if we want to reduce ethnic prejudice, addressing threats in general will not produce the same desirable results as focusing on specific threats relating to specific ethnic groups. Identifying specific threats felt in relation to different minorities is the first step in fighting hostility toward them. The next step is to counterbalance negative discourse with a more positive one and to improve the effectiveness of prejudice-reduction intervention programs by focusing on these specific threat types. For example, via cognitive mechanisms it should be explained that realistic threats like terroristic attacks from Muslims are exceptional and crimes concerning Roma (petty thefts) are less harmful than corruption from powerful people from majority. Regarding symbolic threat, the assimilation of Hungarians is more prevailing than Hungarianization, and we are hardly threatened by Islamisation due to the low percentage of Muslim people living in this country.

Moreover, perceived threats from the Roma, Muslim and Slovak Hungarians often lead to negative attitudes and prejudices. As the majority’s perceptions of different social groups related to stereotypes and perceived threat are distinct (López-Rodríguez et al., 2014), prejudices concerning minorities also differ. Concretely, economic threat perceived from the Roma minority enhance prejudice about laziness, safety threats from Muslim minority is associated with terrorism and power threat from Slovak Hungarians strengthen prejudices that they are oppressors. Therefore, explaining the misperception of perceived threats help to reduce these prejudices.

5 Conclusions

Previous approaches have divided intergroup threats into realistic and symbolic ones (Stephan & Renfro, 2002), while realistic threats can be further divided into economic and safety threats. Based on our results, power threat should be recognized as a separate and important threat type. Our findings indicate other relevant threat types – hygienic threat and negative behavior threat – which could be subsumed under realistic threat. The majority population connected Roma and Muslim people more frequently with safety threat and the Hungarian minority with power threat. However, safety threat is perceived differently depending on the minority. Concretely, the most common safety threat from the Roma minority was theft and violence which is linked to prejudice of rude behavior, unwillingness to work, social system abuse, and lack of education, while the most common safety threat from Muslims was terrorism, associated with prejudice of extremism, oppression, and paradoxically stems from the symbolic threat of another religion. Different content of the specific threat depends on the perceived minority itself.