Individual level interventions

1. Why do we need social psychology to fight antigypsyism?
2. Psychological interventions to reduce prejudice
3. The unique characteristics of antigypsyism
4. Best practice examples
5. Recommendations

Perspective taking interventions

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Description In these interventions participants are directly instructed or indirectly led to step in the shoes of a member of a different group and perceive a particular social situation as if they were members of the other group (target group, out-group). They typically use engaging personal stories for this goal. Participants can also be directly instructed to try to empathize with members of the target group.

Why it works for members of majority and advantaged groups Perspective taking conveys its effect on attitudes via both affective and cognitive processes. Research demonstrated that perspective taking induced both parallel and reactive empathy (feeling the same emotion as the other or feeling concerned about the other’s situation). This method can also affect how people explain situations, specifically, it increases the recognition of contextual factors, so it reduces blaming members of the target group. Furthermore, participants can recognize the similarities between themselves and members of the out-group.

How members of minority and disadvantaged groups are affected Minorities are not directly involved in the intervention. (They might be affected indirectly and partially – in case the intervention results in lowering the prejudice towards Roma among participants.)

Applicability for Roma—non-Roma context This method has been effectively used in the context of Roma—non-Roma relations [7]. In a so-called “Gypsy Maze” intervention, participants took part in a role-playing activity, and put themselves in the place of a young Roma boy from the countryside who tried to make his way in Budapest. Participants learned about the challenges and difficulties a disadvantaged Roma boy had to go through. The interactive online game made it possible for them to actively engage in the perspective-taking task. This method was effective in decreasing their prejudice toward the Roma.

Related publications in social psychological journals
Galinsky, A. D., & Moskowitz, G. B. (2000). Perspective-taking: Decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(4), 708–724. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.708
Paolucci, M. P. (2003). Perspective taking and prejudice reduction: The mediational role of empathy arousal and situational attributions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(4), 455-472. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.163
[7] Simonovits, G., Kezdi, G., & Kardos, P. (2018). Seeing the world through the other’s eye: An online intervention reducing ethnic prejudice. American Political Science Review, 112(1), 186-193. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055417000478
Vescio, T. K., Sechrist, G. B., & Stephan, W. G., & Finlay, K. (1999). The role of empathy in improving intergroup relations. Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 729-743. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00144

Providing counter-stereotypical information

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Description In these interventions participants receive counter-stereotypical images, examples, and narratives concerning a group. The examples are often provided in the form of entertainment (by stories or films). They can be used directly or indirectly: interventions may have the goal to directly persuade participants to change their attitudes, or they can provide them with an experience where participants themselves collect counter-stereotypical information.

Why it works for members of majority and advantaged groups The method of providing counter-stereotypical information builds on cognitive dissonance reduction, in which the previously held beliefs and prejudice are contrasted to new information. Participants are motivated to change their original attitude to resolve the discrepancy between previously held beliefs and the counter-stereotypical information that they received during the intervention. Attitude change is more likely if participants repeatedly meet with counter-stereotypical information, as it can be more easily generalised to the whole out-group. Furthermore, attitude change is more stable if it is reinforced by group discussions as a follow-up of the intervention. However, when prejudice is high, the counter-stereotypical information may be neglected by the participants, therefore this method is more efficient among people with moderate attitudes who are motivated to change.

How members of minority and disadvantaged groups are affected Learning about counter-stereotypical examples can have a secondary function of presenting alternative role models for minority members which either help coping (see the theory of social creativity) or can offer a genuine change in identity content.

Applicability for Roma—non-Roma context This method can potentially be an effective tool for reducing antigypsyism, because it challenges the homogenising perception of Roma people in society, the deep-rooted stereotypes about the Roma, and the tendency to view Roma people simply as a social category (i.e. underclass). Showing counter-stereotypical examples can therefore disrupt these views. However, because so few Roma people are shown in leadership or other non-stereotypical positions in the media, there is also the risk of subtyping (i.e., considering the counter-stereotypical example as an exception) that would curb the generalisation effect and therefore limit attitude change. A photo campaign contrasted Roma people in their own clothes and Roma people in clothes representing stereotypes of the Roma, which aimed to contrast the way how homogenous and stereotypical Roma are depicted by the media and the public discourse, and how heterogenous Roma people actually are as individuals.

Related publications in social psychological journals
Dasgupta, N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2001). On the malleability of automatic attitudes: combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 800-814. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.5.800
Jackson, L. A., Sullivan, L. A., Harnish, R., & Hodge, C. N. (1996). Achieving positive social identity: Social mobility, social creativity, and permeability of group boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(2), 241-254. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.2.241
Vasiljevic, M., & Crisp, R. J. (2013). Tolerance by surprise: Evidence for a generalized reduction in prejudice and increased egalitarianism through novel category combination. PloS One, 8(3), e57106. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057106

Changing unconscious bias
(Cognitive reappraisal and emotion regulation interventions)

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Description These interventions teach participants that they are unconsciously influenced by biases in information processing (i.e. in selecting, remembering and interpreting the available information) which lead to biased and discriminatory behaviour. However, learning about these biases can help people change their perceptions. People can also change their emotions by consciously reframing their understanding of situations and groups.
For example, an evidence-based “prejudice habit-breaking” intervention had three levels: raising awareness about the bias, motivating people to act against the negative consequences of bias, and learning about strategies on how to do that [8]. These strategies include, for example, “stereotype replacement”, which means that participants have to be aware when stereotypes are activated, and try to look for non-stereotypical information to replace them. Another strategy is “individuation”, when people try to look for specific, individual information when meeting a member of another group, and consciously do not rely on group membership as the source of information. There is evidence that teaching such techniques can reduce prejudice.
Another technique is emotion-regulation: participants are instructed to approach anger-inducing pictures (related to an intergroup conflict) in a cold and analytical manner as if they were scientists. This appraisal made participants actually feel less anger toward another group, compared to the control group who did not practice emotion regulation [9].

Why it works for members of majority and advantaged groups People experience cognitive dissonance (an unpleasant tension between one’s attitudes, opinions and values on the one hand, and acts on the other) when they realize that their perception is distorted by cognitive bias, hostile emotions and prejudice, because these are in conflict with their idea that they treat others with fairness. To decrease dissonance, people are motivated to learn about these processes and ways to deal with them.
They can learn that prejudice appears on both explicit and implicit levels. Handling explicit prejudice entails the awareness and less restricted expression of negative stereotypes about members of other groups, so people can more easily make decisions about expressing such prejudice or not. Implicit prejudice, on the other hand, is less controllable, and part of our need to put people automatically in “boxes.” Learning about implicit prejudice and strategies to cope with it can question the justification of these practices and lead to behavioural change to decrease the appearance of this bias in everyday life.
Members of the majority who are motivated to learn about these skills and change their attitudes could benefit a lot from this approach. However, highly prejudiced individuals may be relieved by the notion that prejudice is normal and widespread which can lead to a potential backfire effect.

How members of minority and disadvantaged groups are affected The intervention does not target minorities.

Applicability for Roma—non-Roma context This approach is not necessarily context specific, although participants are led to recognise prejudice in specific intergroup contexts, therefore it can potentially be applied to Roma—non-Roma relations. However, this method only works if participants consider antigypsyism a problem and have some motivation to change, therefore, this method is not applicable for highly prejudiced individuals. Additionally, the method can encourage participants to justify their prejudice and put the blame on the targets of prejudice, therefore the prejudice reduction effect can even backfire.

Related publications in social psychological journals
[8] Devine, P. G., Forscher, P. S., Austin, A. J., & Cox, W. T. (2012). Long-term reduction in implicit race bias: A prejudice habit-breaking intervention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(6), 1267-1278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.06.003
[9] Halperin, E., Porat, R., Tamir, M., & Gross, J. J. (2013). Can emotion regulation change political attitudes in intractable conflicts? From the laboratory to the field. Psychological Science, 24(1), 106-111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612452572

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