The last acceptable prejudice in Europe? Anti-Gypsyism as the obstacle to Roma inclusion

The paper, in plain language

Europe's largest minority, psychology's smallest literature

Ten to twelve million Roma live in Europe, systematically disadvantaged despite decades of inclusion policy — yet social psychology has studied anti-Gypsyism far less than other prejudices. In a collaboration led by Anna Kende spanning Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Norway, Italy and Spain, we tested a three-component model: blatant negative stereotypes, perceived undeserved benefits, and romanticized cultural-difference stereotypes.

One component travels, the others are local

Blatant stereotyping predicted rejecting Roma inclusion in all six countries — the transnational core of the prejudice. The undeserved-benefits component bit only in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, where Roma populations are large and economic-conflict framings resonate. The seemingly positive stereotypes — Roma as free-spirited, musical — behaved most revealingly: in East-Central Europe endorsing them tracked wanting to appear unprejudiced, in Norway they reflected genuinely positive attitudes, and in Spain they patterned like veiled prejudice. Our third hypothesis, that they would predict acceptance outside East-Central Europe, failed — we say so plainly.

Why it matters

If the core of anti-Gypsyism is shared across Europe but its expressions are local, EU-level policy needs both a common denominator and national calibration. Methodological honesty matters here too: measurement invariance held only at the loosest level, so the study cannot rank countries by prejudice — a limitation we state twice rather than bury. The paper anchors the Roma strand of my prejudice research, alongside the experimental work on disgust-eliciting media portrayals.