How do members of dominant groups, like White people in the United States, react when their privileged social status is threatened, for example, by the prospect of numeric decline? Prior studies identify two sets of reactions: (1) White people identify more strongly with ingroup members, and (2) they withhold material and symbolic resources from outgroup members. This study explores another possibility: White people may alter the boundary around Whiteness by redefining the criteria for membership. I use an original survey experiment to examine how demographic threat affects how White people in the United States classify people who are ambiguously White, and specifically people who are ambiguously White or Latino. The results reveal that White people are less—not more—likely to classify people who are ambiguously White or Latino as “White” under threat. The results contribute to a growing literature on the racial classification of multiracial and racially ambiguous people that has previously ignored ambiguity around the Latino category. They also speak to an active debate about demographic projections and the classification decisions on which they rest.

中文翻译：

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收缩作为对群体威胁的反应：人口下降和白人对白人模糊的人的分类

当他们的特权社会地位受到威胁时，例如，数字下降的前景，占主导地位的群体的成员（如美国的白人）如何反应？先前的研究确定了两组反应：（1）白人对内群体成员的认同感更强，（2）他们拒绝向外群体成员提供物质和象征资源。这项研究探索了另一种可能性：白人可能会通过重新定义成员资格标准来改变围绕白人的界限。我使用原始调查实验来检查人口威胁如何影响美国白人如何对白人模棱两可的人进行分类，特别是对白人或拉丁裔模棱两可的人进行分类。结果表明，白人不太可能——而不是更多——将模棱两可的白人或拉丁裔人归类为受到威胁的“白人”。结果有助于越来越多的关于多种族和种族模棱两可的人的种族分类的文献，这些文献以前忽略了拉丁裔类别的模糊性。他们还就人口预测和他们所依据的分类决策进行了积极的辩论。