1 Is it Fear? Emotions Undergirding Group Conflict Attitudes

This paper examines the emotions driving contemporary racial threat attitudes (group conflict opinions) among Whites. Scholars have argued that this threat is situated in fear because of Blacks attempt to chip away at the stratification system. My position is that fear is not the primary emotion on which contemporary racial threat attitudes are built. In two experiments (local sample and a national adult sample) I induce fear or anger utilizing an apolitical task. The two studies reveal strong support that fear is not linked to perceptions of competitive racial threat