The existence of hierarchies of ethnic preferences in society is well-documented. However, there is little research about how such ethnic hierarchies can be explained. Improving upon previous studies, we investigated whether individuals’ cultural distance toward ethnic outgroups and their level of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) contribute to differences in their perception of social distance toward these groups. Our study is based on a survey in the Netherlands (N = 1249) and provides robust evidence for an ethnic hierarchy in the majority group’s perception of social distance toward 36 ethnic groups. However, this hierarchy is not universal. For more right-wing authoritarian individuals, the ethnic hierarchy is particularly steep, meaning they discriminate more between outgroups. By contrast, less right-wing authoritarian individuals differentiate little between outgroups. Furthermore, the relationship between RWA and social distance is moderated by cultural distance. We interpret this finding with symbolic threat theory, according to which greater cultural distance “activates” authoritarian attitudes, which affect the perception of social distance to varying degrees. Our results contribute to understanding the ethnic hierarchy in social distance perceptions by showing that it is determined by characteristics of the perceiving individual (RWA) and of the perceived group (cultural distance) as well as by their interaction.
