Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of humanity: Prejudice against the gypsies in Britain and in Romania

Copyright @ 2005 PromolibroPrejudice against ethnic minorities is investigated not only as the establishment of difference between social groups on valued dimensions but also as the denial of similarities that would prevent the inclusion of both ingroups and outgroups in the superordinate category of human-beings. The present study sought to explore the two concepts that are advanced to describe the phenomenon of dehumanisation of out-groups: their ontologisation and their infrahumanisation in relation to the Gypsy minority. British and Romanian participants were asked to rate their national ingroup and the Gypsies using characteristics judged typically human and typically animal following the ontologisation and infrahumanisation literature. The results indicated the the ontologisation of the Gypsies occurs in both national samples whereas their infrahumanisation is only verified for the British participants. The implications of these findings are discussed from the perspectives of the infrahumanisation and ontologisation

Social representations and the politics of participation

Recent work has called for the integration of different perspectives into the field of political psychology (Haste, 2012). This chapter suggests that one possible direction that such efforts can take is studying the role that social representations theory (SRT) can play in understanding political participation and social change. Social representations are systems of common-sense knowledge and social practice; they provide the lens through which to view and create social and political realities, mediate people's relations with these sociopolitical worlds and defend cultural and political identities. Social representations are therefore key for conceptualising participation as the activity that locates individuals and social groups in their sociopolitical world. Political participation is generally seen as conditional to membership of sociopolitical groups and therefore is often linked to citizenship. To be a citizen of a society or a member of any social group one has to participate as such. Often political participation is defined as the ability to communicate one's views to the political elite or to the political establishment (Uhlaner, 2001), or simply explicit involvement in politics and electoral processes (Milbrath, 1965). However, following scholars on ideology (Eagleton, 1991; Thompson, 1990) and social knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007), we extend our understanding of political participation to all social relations and also develop a more agentic model where individuals and groups construct, develop and resist their own views, ideas and beliefs. We thus adopt a broader approach to participation in comparison to other political-psychological approaches, such as personality approaches (e.g. Mondak and Halperin, 2008) and cognitive approaches or, more recently, neuropsychological approaches (Hatemi and McDermott, 2012). We move away from a focus on the individual's political behaviour and its antecedents and outline an approach that focuses on the interaction between psychological and political phenomena (Deutsch and Kinnvall, 2002) through examining the politics of social knowledge

Claims to a nation, dressing the part and other boundary making strategies by skilled migrants in response to ethnic categorization

This article is about self-defined social identities, other people's perceptions of us and the potentially conflictual relationship between these two. Building on a Barthian focus on group boundaries, the article takes the interplay between external categorizations and internal group definitions as its point of departure to examine how individuals negotiate the boundaries of their social identities. Based on a case study of skilled migrants with racialized ethnicities in Finland, I look at how they express their self-defined identity as well-to-do, skilled professionals in the face of contradicting categorizations of them as unskilled , lower-class migrant subjects. I identify two types of complementary approaches employed by the skilled migrants in boundary making strategies to their identity negotiations: those de-emphasizing ethnicity (or its importance), and those emphasizing class status. These approaches are two sides of the same coin; coming from different perspectives, they both aim at a more positively viewed identity, and for individuals to be seen as well-to-do, educated, working professionals, rather than as ethnic migrant subjects. As such, the article also highlights the interconnection of class and ethnicity for the social identities of skilled migrants in Finland.This article is about self-defined social identities, other people’s perceptions of us and the potentially conflictual relationship between these two. Building on a Barthian focus on group boundaries, the article takes the interplay between external categorizations and internal group definitions as its point of departure to examine how individuals negotiate the boundaries of their social identities. Based on a case study of skilled migrants with racialized ethnicities in Finland, I look at how they express their self-defined identity as well-to-do, skilled professionals in the face of contradicting categorizations of them as un-skilled, lower-class migrant subjects. I identify two types of complementary approaches employed by the skilled migrants in boundary making strategies to their identity negotiations: those de-emphasizing ethnicity (or its importance), and those emphasizing class status. These approaches are two sides of the same coin; coming from different perspectives, they both aim at a more positively viewed identity, and for individuals to be seen as well-to-do, educated, working professionals, rather than as ethnic migrant subjects. As such, the article also highlights the interconnection of class and ethnicity for the social identities of skilled migrants in Finland.Peer reviewe

Why "our" policies set the standard more than "theirs": Category norms and generalization between European Union countries

Five experiments examined how 333 British participants used representations of the category "EU countries," to judge similarities, reason about generalization, and explain differences between EU countries. EU countries vary in their prototypicality and the in-group (Britain) is distinctive (Experiment 1). Prototypicality affects preferences for statements about similarity between countries (Experiment 2). However, when generalizing a policy study between countries, category norms that included the policy's home country were formed, rendering that country's distinctive attributes implicit. Consequently participants generalized less to their distinctive in-group than from it, considered their in-group and the out-groups to be more similar when the policy's home country was their in-group rather than an out-group (Experiments 3a and 3b), and rarely mentioned attributes of the policy's home country while explaining differences between countries (Experiment 4). Country prototypicality had no effect on reasoning about generalization. We discuss how category norms can engender ethnocentrism at a cognitive level

Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of humanity: Prejudice against the Gypsies in Britain and in Romania

Prejudice against ethnic minorities is investigated not only as the establishment of difference between social groups on valued dimensions but also as the denial of similarities that would prevent the inclusion of both ingroups and outgroups in the superordinate category of human-beings. The present study sought to explore the two concepts that are advanced to describe the phenomenon of dehumanisation of outgroups: their ontologisation and their infra-humanisation in relation to the Gypsy minority. British and Romanian participants were asked to rate their national ingroup and the Gypsies using characteristics judged typically human and typically animal fo­llowing the ontologisation and infrahumani­sa­tion literature. The results indicated that the ontologisation of the Gypsies occurs in both national samples whereas their infra-huma­nisation is only verified for the British participants. The implications of these fin­dings are discussed from the perspectives of the infrahumanisation and ontologisation

Why "our" policies set the standard more than "theirs": Category norms and generalization between European Union countries

Five experiments examined how 333 British participants used representations of the category "EU countries," to judge similarities, reason about generalization, and explain differences between EU countries. EU countries vary in their prototypicality and the in-group (Britain) is distinctive (Experiment 1). Prototypicality affects preferences for statements about similarity between countries (Experiment 2). However, when generalizing a policy study between countries, category norms that included the policy's home country were formed, rendering that country's distinctive attributes implicit. Consequently participants generalized less to their distinctive in-group than from it, considered their in-group and the out-groups to be more similar when the policy's home country was their in-group rather than an out-group (Experiments 3a and 3b), and rarely mentioned attributes of the policy's home country while explaining differences between countries (Experiment 4). Country prototypicality had no effect on reasoning about generalization. We discuss how category norms can engender ethnocentrism at a cognitive level