82 Ethnic sorting in football Taijfel and Turner (1979)9. Key to this approach is the premise that people may perceive and experience the manifestation of ethnic outgroup members as a threat to their well-being as a member of their respective ethnic ingroup. Intergroup Threat Theory (ITT)10 is one of the most recent incarnations of this approach and distinguishes between two types of threat people may experience (Stephan et al., 2009). The first type consists of so called ‘realistic threats’ which refer to situations in which ethnic outgroup members are perceived to compromise the position of one’s ingroup in terms of power, resources, health or safety. The second type are ‘symbolic threats’. These threats refer to situations in which the presence of outgroup members is believed to endanger the norms, values and attitudes that are regarded as a constitutive part of the ingroup value system11. Being subjected to outgroup threat can be both psychologically and physiologically taxing for individuals. It has been linked to heighted levels of anxiety, self-awareness, insecurity, as well as raised concentrations of cortisol in the body (Sampasivam et al., 2016; Stephan & Stephan, 1985). Moreover, Stephan et al. (2009) point out that threat can have a self-perpetuating effect on group dynamics. It may sharpen individuals’ perception of in- and outgroup differences, and foster ingroup favouring and outgroup derogating attitudes and behaviours, both of which may serve to further exacerbate intergroup threat. On top of this, intergroup threat may also heighten threat from one’s ingroup. Namely, under threatening circumstances, prototypical ingroup norms are enforced more strictly and deviant behaviour is more likely to evoke strong social sanctioning from fellow ingroup members. Interethnic contact does not automatically translate to threat, however. A necessary precondition for feelings of group threat to emerge is that the ethnic intergroup nature of the setting is recognized and accepted by participants (Sampasivam et al., 2016). In other words, organizational members must repeatedly categorize themselves and others as (co-)members of distinct and contrasting ethnic groups, in favour of other classifications. 9 See. Quillian (1995) for a more elaborate historical account. 10 An earlier version of this theory was described as Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000) 11 The term ‘realistic’ here is a reference to the earlier developed Realistic Conflict Theory and should not be understood as suggesting that this type of threat is - in terms of both experiences and consequences - more real than the other. A key premise of ITT is that threats are real to the extent that they are perceived as such by individuals, even when the claims on which they rest are false.
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