Attitudes towards African Immigrants and Gypsies: A comparative Study

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to study the attitudes of the local population towards three ethnic groups with a considerably high presence in a town in Almería (Southern Spain): North-African immigrants, black immigrants and gypsies. The participants were 105 subjects (56.2% female and 43.8% male), ages 18 to 62 (Mean=38.99; sd=12.45). We designed a questionnaire to measure the affective and cognitive components of attitude, the perceived social consideration of these groups, the attribution of in-group and Out-group differences and the perceived number of people that belong to these out-groups in the area. The North- African immigrants obtained the worst rating whereas black immigrants received the best. Gypsies were rated between these two groups. We also observe a negative evolution of the attitudes towards North-African immigrants in comparison to previous studies in this area. Attitudes towards black immigrants remained mode- rately positive. Possible psychosocial explanations for these results are discussed.