When threat matters: Self-regulation, threat salience, and stereotyping

•Perceived threat interacted with motivational state to affect stereotype use.•Motivation-based increases in stereotyping replicated across three social contexts.•Threat/prevention focus increased support for policies perceived to address threat.•Threat effects depended upon motivational concerns.

Four experiments examined whether information implying imminent threat to safety would interact with regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997) to affect the utilization of threat-relevant stereotypes. Because information suggesting imminent danger is more relevant to the safety goals of prevention-focused individuals than the advancement goals of promotion-focused individuals, utilization of threat-relevant stereotypes was expected to increase under such conditions only under prevention focus. Support for this prediction was obtained in four distinct and socially important domains. Using scenarios describing a violent crime committed by an African-American male (Experiment 1) or a petty crime committed by an undocumented immigrant (Experiment 2), prevention-focused individuals made judgments consistent with stereotypes when threat was perceived to be high rather than low. In studies that manipulated the stereotypicality of the target in a terrorism scenario (Experiments 3 & 4), prevention-focused individuals were more likely to endorse scrutinizing a stereotypical compared with a non-stereotypical target when terrorism was described as an increasing problem. Implications for models of stereotyping, self-regulation, and responding to threat are discussed.