16. February 2020.
03. June 2020.
Challenge or Conformity to Group Norms: How Group-Affirmation Shapes Collective Action on Behalf of Roma People
The report was prepared by Constantina Badea from Université Paris Nanterre.
Conclusions:
- Social norms are internalized through identification with a group. Belonging to a social group such as a nationality provides members with a definition of “who we are” and a description and prescription of what being a group member involves (norms).
- While sometimes people conform to social norms, in other circumstances they challenge and stand in contrast to perceived group norms, via collective actions.
- Interventions based on self-affirmation theory can increase the group conformity vs group challenge effect.
- Group-affirmation that draws on national group membership increased the salience of norms associated to national identity. Consequently, group-affirmation increased the impact of social norms on individuals’ intention to engage in collective action regarding Roma minority (conformity effect).
- If social norms are non-discriminatory, group-affirmation can increase the positive impact of social norms on collective action helping Roma minority. If these norms are discriminatory, group-affirmation can increase the impact of these negative norms on collective action expressing hostility towards Roma minority.
- Political discourse shapes social norms regarding attitudes towards minority groups. When these norms are discriminatory, they can interfere with social interventions and diminish citizens’ intentions to engage in Pro-Roma collective action.
Partners
The project “Identifying evidence-based methods to effectively combat discrimination of the Roma in the changing political climate of Europe” (Grant. No. 808062 — PolRom — REC-AG-2017/REC-RDIS-DISC-AG-2017) is funded by the Justice programme of the European Union (2014-2020).
