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Trends in bigoted violence are often explained by reference to frustrations arising from macroeconomic downturns. Historical and recent time-series studies have turned up significant links between economic conditions and lynchings of Blacks in the pre-Depression South (e.g., Hepworth & West, 1988; Hovland & Sears, 1940). However, replicating the time-series analyses of lynching, extending them through the Great Depression, and applying similar techniques to contemporary data fail to provide robust evidence of a link between economic performance and intolerant behavior directed against minorities. The authors speculate that the predictive force of macroeconomic fluctuation is undermined by the rapid rate of decay in the frustration-bred aggressive impulse and the absence of prominent political actors affixing economic blame on target groups.

Many social science theories trace intergroup antagonism and violence to adverse economic conditions. In sociology, intergroup hostility is frequently attributed to competition for scarce material resources, the effects of which are exacerbated during periods of economic retrenchment (Bobo, 1988; Olzak, 1990; Olzak & Shanahan, 1996). A variant of this hypothesis common in studies of comparative politics focuses on the manipulative role played by political leaders, who encourage out-group hostilities by playing upon economic resentments (Horowitz, 1985). The mediating role of elites also figures prominently in the Marxist thesis that racial antagonism between Black and White workers in the South was fomented by capitalists eager to deflect attention away from class politics, particularly during periods of economic strain (Cox, 1948).

In the field of psychology, one of the most commonly articulated hypotheses linking intergroup antagonism to economic contraction is the frustration–aggression thesis formulated by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears (1939) and elaborated by Miller (1941). This thesis was given its most memorable empirical grounding in a classic paper by Hovland and Sears (1940), in which the authors argued that the frustrations attendant to economic downturns produce aggressive impulses that are directed at vulnerable targets, such as minority groups, even when these groups bear no actual or perceived responsibility for economic decline. Reasoning...