PERCEPTIONS OF RACIAL GROUP COMPETITION - EXTENDING BLUMER THEORY OF GROUP POSITION TO A MULTIRACIAL SOCIAL-CONTEXT

Perceptions of threat occupy a central place in race relations in Blum er's theory of prejudice but few direct efforts to study such percepti ons exist. Extending Blumer's reasoning, we hypothesize that such perc eptions are driven by a group's feelings of racial alienation within t he larger social order. The more that members of a particular racial g roup feel collectively oppressed and unfairly treated by society, the more likely they are to perceive members of other groups as potential threats. We also examine whether such perceptions spring from simple s elf-interest, orthodox prejudice such as negative feelings and stereot yping, or broad beliefs about social stratification and inequality. We use data from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, a large mult iracial sample of the general population, to analyze the distribution and social and psychological underpinnings of perceived group competit ion. Our results support the racial alienation hypothesis as well as t he hypotheses positing effects for self-interest, prejudice, and strat ification beliefs. We argue that Blumer's group-position framework off ers the most parsimonious integration and interpretation of the social psychological processes involved in the formation of perceptions of g roup threat and competition.