Linguistic Discrimination Towards Roma: Can Intergroup Threat Enhance Bias?

Recently, there has been an increase in political ethnocentric attitudes resulting in a worldwide call to establish barriers against “foreigners” and in depicting immigrants as a threat. This experimental study considered the effect of intergroup threat (no-threat, realistic threat, symbolic threat) due to immigrants in enhancing discrimination towards Roma (one of the most numerous and very negatively stereotyped minority group in Europe). An implicit measure of linguistic discrimination (language abstraction of terms used in Roma descriptions) and an explicit measure of affective prejudice (feelings thermometer) were employed. The relation between implicit and explicit discrimination was also analyzed. Findings confirmed the hypotheses that intergroup threat would enhance linguistic derogation and affective prejudice towards Roma and that linguistic abstraction would mediate threat’s effect on affective prejudice against Roma. Findings’ implications with reference to the role of language in shaping intergroup relations and social exclusion towards very stigmatized outgroups will be discussed.