Group Status and Social Dominance in American Politics

Abstract

This dissertation argues that concerns about declining social status and a desire to preserve ingroup dominance significantly shape contemporary political attitudes and behaviors in the United States. Building upon Social Dominance Theory, I demonstrate that historically dominant groups respond defensively to perceived status threats arising from demographic, cultural, and economic shifts. In Chapter 1, I lay the theoretical foundation, connecting group-based status anxieties to social dominance-oriented attitudes and contemporary political cleavages. Chapter 2 examines how the belief in a just world reflects social dominance motives, acting as a status-legitimizing ideology that rationalizes racial and other inequalities, facilitating resistance to redistributive policies and reinforcing racial resentment. Chapter 3 provides evidence that geographical variation in historical slavery rates continue to influence contemporary ideology through the cultural transmission of status-legitimizing beliefs among White Southerners, revealing the role of historical status hierarchies in shaping and perpetuating white status-legitimizing ideologies and beliefs in the Southern United States. Finally, in Chapter 4, I examine the MAGA movement, showing that Social Dominance Orientation and perceived threats to dominant-group status—not traditional conservatism—primarily drive populist and anti-democratic attitudes associated with support for Donald Trump. Collectively, my findings highlight the central role of status anxieties in fueling polarization, right-wing populism, and democratic backsliding.