When 'Can I help you?' hurts: Roma experiences of everyday microaggressions in retail outlets.

The concept of microaggressions alerts us how majority group members' everyday behaviour can impact minorities negatively. Recently, some researchers have questioned the criteria for identifying microaggressions and rejected the concept's utility. We maintain that attending to minorities' everyday experiences is important and illustrate this through a three-phase study with Roma in Hungary. First, we conducted interviews exploring their everyday interactional experiences (Phase 1, N = 17); second, Roma participants filmed (naturally occurring) interactions with majority group members (Phase 2, N = 10); third, we showed such filmed interactions to Roma focus groups and recorded their discussions (Phase 3, N = 28). Analysing these discussions, we focused on how the experience of surveillance when shopping (even when manifested in apparently helpful attention from shop assistants) impacted participants in ways that majority group members likely have little awareness of. Specifically, participants reported their need to (a) reflect on (and manage) their emotional reactions; (b) weigh a variety of strategic considerations as to how to respond; and (c) engage in in-the-moment interpretation as to the nature of the interaction. Such experiences negatively impact the use of public space and illustrate the value of adopting the minority's vantage point concerning the identification of microaggressive treatment.

"Personally, I feel sorry, but professionally, I don't have a choice." Understanding the drivers of anti-Roma discrimination on the rental housing market.

The aim of our study is to assess the drivers of discriminatory behaviors of real-estate agents and private landlords toward prospective Roma tenants, relying on qualitative data from Hungary. Though there is a broad literature on the forms and frequency of discrimination, we know much less about the question of why people discriminate. Previous research suggests that discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is widespread in Hungary. To understand the drivers of discrimination, we analyzed: (a) the sources and justifications of discrimination of Roma people on the rental housing market among real-estate agents and private landlords, the actors making decisions about tenants (b) mapped the social embeddedness of discrimination, and (c) assessed the resilience of discriminatory intentions by analyzing the reactions to a 3-min advocacy video showing discrimination of Roma people on the rental housing market. We conducted and analyzed five online group discussions with 18 real estate agents and landlords advertising properties for rent in different regions of the country. Our qualitative study revealed that discrimination of Roma people is understood to be a widespread and socially acceptable practice driven by the need to avoid risks attributed to Roma tenants based on widely held stereotypes about them. We identified certain specificities in the justification and argumentation strategies of real-estate agents in comparison to private landlords. By providing counter-information presenting the perspective of Roma tenants, negative views could be challenged on the emotional level and also by shifting the group dynamics, strengthening the viewpoint of those without prejudice. We discuss our findings with regards to the possibilities of interventions against discrimination in societies in which neither social norms nor state institutions expect the equal treatment of the members of ethnic minority groups.

Whose Norms, Whose Prejudice? The Dynamics of Perceived Group Norms and Prejudice in New Secondary School Classes.

Ethnic prejudice can lead to exclusion and hinder social integration. Prejudices are formed throughout socialization, and social norms inform individuals about the acceptability of prejudice against certain outgroups. Adolescence is a crucial period for the development of intergroup attitudes, and young people are especially prone to follow the norms they perceive in their reference groups. At the same time, the effect of perceived norms on prejudice in school classes has been rarely studied. In Hungary, where prejudice against the Roma is widespread and there is no clear social norm proscribing prejudiced manifestations, this topic is especially relevant. In the present paper, based on multi-level analyses of panel data from Hungarian ninth-graders, we find that adolescents adjust their attitudes to those they perceive to be dominant among their classmates and that classmates serve as more important reference groups than teachers do. More contact with Roma is found to be associated with less prejudice against them. Looking at school classes, we find that at the beginning of the school year, many students underestimate the rejection of prejudiced expressions in their classes. By the end of the year, many students are found to adjust their own attitudes to the falsely perceived class norm. Based on our findings, we argue that school classes should be treated as important normative contexts for the socialization of intergroup attitudes and should receive special attention from both scholars and practitioners working in the fields of prejudice research and reduction. Furthermore, we suggest that teachers can most successfully hinder prejudices by working on a common, visible, shared class norm rather than "teaching" students that prejudices are not acceptable.

The Impact of Response Instruction and Target Group on the BIAS Map.

Response instructions-inviting participants to respond from a certain perspective-can significantly influence the performance and construct validity of psychological measures. Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and then the BIAS map ("behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes") were originally developed as universal measures of shared cultural stereotypes-participants' perceptions of what most of the people in a society think about the target group-and their related social-structural antecedents, emotions and behavioral tendencies. Yet a number of studies have adopted a different response instruction focusing on individual stereotypes-what the participants personally think about the target group. So far, there is little evidence to suggest how these two different response instructions (individual vs. shared cultural perspective) might influence the performance of the BIAS map, especially when applied to target groups that elicit different normative and social desirability concerns. To provide novel evidence, we conducted an experiment with a representative sample of ethnic Slovaks (N = 1269). In a 2 × 2 factorial design, we found response instruction (individual vs. shared cultural perspective) and target group [stigmatized ethnic minority (the Roma) vs. non-stigmatized ethnic minority (the Hungarians)] had significant effects on the BIAS map and their interaction had significant effects on the social structure and behavioral tendencies (but not on stereotypes and emotions) scales. Exploratory analysis also points to partial influence on the mediation hypothesis underlying the BIAS map and minor effects on its scale properties. Our evidence suggests that the difference between individual stereotypes and shared cultural stereotypes partially depends on the target group in question and that they should be treated as two potentially separate constructs.