Psicología Política, Nº 30, 2005, 41-56

EXCLUSION OF ETHNIC GROUPS FROM THE REALM OF HUMANITY

Prejudice against the Gypsies in Britain and in Romania

Afrodita Marcu - Xenia Chryssochoou

University of Surrey, Panteion University

RESUMEN ABSTRACT
Se analiza el prejuicio contra minorías ét- Prejudice against ethnic minorities is
nicas como el establecimiento de la investigated not only as the establishment of
diferencia entre los grupos sociales en difference between social groups on valued
dimensiones valoradas y también como la dimensions but also as the denial of
negación de las semejanzas evitando la similarities that would prevent the inclusion
inclusión de endogrupos y exogrupos en la of both ingroups and outgroups in the
categoría superior de seres humanos. Esta superordinate category of human-beings.
investigación analiza en la minoría gitana The present study sought to explore the two
los dos conceptos que se utilizan para concepts that are advanced to describe the
describir el fenómeno de la phenomenon of dehumanisation of
deshumanización de grupos ajenos: su outgroups: their ontologisation and their
ontologización e infrahumanización. Se infra-humanisation in relation to the Gypsy
pidió a los británicos y rumanos de la minority. British and Romanian participants
muestra que clasificaran a su grupo nacional were asked to rate their national ingroup
y a los gitanos a partir de las características and the Gypsies using characteristics judged
juzgadas típicamente humanas y typically human and typically animal fo-
típicamente animales según la literatura teó- llowing the ontologisation and infrahumani-
rica de la ontologización e sation literature. The results indicated that
infrahumanización. Los resultados the ontologisation of the Gypsies occurs in
indicaron que la ontologización de los both national samples whereas their infra-
gitanos ocurre en ambas muestras humanisation is only verified for the British
nacionales mientras que su infrahumani- participants. The implications of these fin-
zation solo ocurre en los participantes dings are discussed from the perspectives of
británicos. Se analizan las implicaciones de the infrahumanisation and ontologisation.
los resultados desde la perspectiva de
infrahumanización y ontologisation.
Key words: ontologisation, infrahumanisation, ingroups and outgroups, Gypsy

Social psychology has often focused on the study of prejudice and

stereotypes as phenomena of inter-group relations and studied their beha-
vioural expression in terms of evaluative judgements of the out-group
and/or in terms of unequal distribution of material and symbolic resources
(Brown, 1995, 2000; Doise, 1978; Sherif, 1966; Tajfel 1974, 1981). Recent
42 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

studies suggest that ethnic prejudice may go beyond mere evaluative

judgments, and may include semantic-anthropological considerations.
While evaluative discrimination consists of judging out-groups in terms of
positive versus negative attributes in order to confirm a difference between
in-group and out-group on valued dimensions, semantic-anthropological
discrimination involves judging out-groups in terms of natural and cultural
characteristics (Moscovici and Pérez, 1997; Pérez, Chulvi and Alonso,
2001).
Moscovici (1968) put forward the idea that nature and culture
constitute dimensions along which representations of human groups are
organised. It is important therefore to look closer at these two concepts.
Culture means “civilisation”, “human development”, “a general process of
intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development” (Williams, 1988), which
“begins at the point at which humans surpass whatever is simply given in
their natural inheritance” (Edgar and Sedgwick, 1999), while Nature is “the
primitive condition before human society”, “plants and creatures other than
man”, (Williams, 1988), “the material that is subject to [a cultural] process
of transformation, but it is not properly part of human society until it has
been so transformed” (Edgar and Sedgwick, 1999: 256). Etymologically
speaking, culture originally meant the cultivation of the land, as in
agriculture, and marked humans’ transition from a hunter-gathering state to
a sedentary form of social organisation. Thus, culture was initially “a
thoroughly material process, which was then metaphorically transposed to
affairs of the spirit”, and its semantic origins indicate humanity’s “historic
shift from rural to urban existence” (Eagleton, 2000). By contrast, nature is
often defined as what existed prior to culture or simply outside human
society (Edgar and Sedgwick, 1999), often viewed as inferior to culture and
as something that needs to be dominated and controlled. In Western
discourse, Nature is commonly seen as the material necessary for the
production of Culture. Strathern points out that often the dichotomy
culture / nature revolves around the idea of domination and control, where
“the wild is transformed into the domestic and the domestic contains within
it primitive elements of its pre-domesticated nature” (1980: 181). This view
of culture as dependent on the exploitation and transformation of nature is
also present with Edgar and Sedgwick (1999) who argue that the
cultivation of the natural world and the human ability to construct and build
are fundamental elements of culture.
Culture is also often taken to mean civilisation, an achieved state or
condition of organised social life, with emphasis on secular and progressive
human self-development (Williams, 1988). Often, civilisation is contrasted
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 43

with savagery and barbarism, where, etymologically speaking, civilisation

(from the Latin civis, a townsperson) means the culture of those who are
settled and is set in contrast with the culture of the moving hordes (from the
Old Turkic ordu), who are viewed as a threat 1. Following the meaning of
civilisation, different cultures leave open the possibility of conflict as in
Huntington’s (1996) thesis about the “clash of civilisations”, for some
cultures will be perceived as more or less “civilised” than others.
Culture has often been depicted as being in a relationship of domination
of Nature: as Donna Haraway highlights, “nature is only the raw material
of nature appropriated, preserved, enslaved, exalted or otherwise made
flexible for disposal by culture in the logic of capitalist colonialism” (1989:
13). Donna Haraway (1991) has illustrated the power imbalance between
humans and animals by showing how primatology and animal studies in
general have been used as a tool to justify “domination based in differences
seen as natural, given, inescapable, and therefore moral” (p.8). Interests of
domination have given animals “a special status as natural objects that can
show people their origin, and therefore their pre-rational, pre-management,
pre-cultural essence”.
Given this view of Culture as an agentic and engaged control of Nature,
one might inquire whether culture as a “historically created system of
meaning and significance” or as “a system of beliefs and practices in terms
of which a group of human beings understand, regulate and structure their
individual and collective lives” (Parekh, 2000: 143) would also encapsulate
the idea of domination and transformation of nature. Following a
parallelism, it could be argued that just as culture, as a superordinate
category, implies the idea of instrumental reason and control of nature, so
human culture, in the sense of beliefs, symbolizations, norms and values,
would imply the idea of control of human instinct, of surpassing whatever
is given in humans’ natural inheritance. Thus, enculturation (the social
process by which culture is learned and used by a human infant) would
involve a polishing of human nature, a sort of domestication at the human
level, whereby humans learn to dominate their instinct, express culturally
accepted emotions and engage in socially sanctioned behaviours.
Following this line of thought, the “essence” of humanity in the
Western world is based on the passage from a state of nature to a state of
culture, from wilderness and nomadic group behaviour to civilisation and
sedentary life where one’s individuality is expressed and fulfilled.
Representations of social groups might, therefore, be organised around the
idea that some groups are closer to “fulfil their human potential” in the
sense that they have domesticated their natural aspects and have achieved
44 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

the civilised state. Indeed, Pérez and his colleagues (Pérez, Chulvi and
Alonso 2001) suggested that when an ethnic minority constantly resists the
majority’s strategies of social integration, the majority attributes the
minority an essence different from the human one. They focused on the
Gypsy minority in Spain and found that Gypsies were attributed more
natural (or animal-like) characteristics in the condition where participants
were informed that Gypsies had not socially integrated despite the
majority’s multiple efforts to convert them. This attribution of more
animal-like characteristics serves as an explanation of why the minority has
resisted social pressure to integrate and has remained at the fringes of
society. The majority attributes the absence of integration to the different
essence of the minority, to their inability to leave their animal condition
and creates a new ontology for them, excluding them from humanity. To
describe this process the concept of ontologisation has been put forward
(Moscovici and Pérez 1997, Pérez, Moscovici and Chulvi, 2002).
Ontologisation consists of an operation of classification by which one
minority can be represented not only as an out-group but can also be
represented as outside the social map of human identity. This exclusion of
the realm of humanity goes beyond ideological prejudice (involving
evaluation) and consists of a categorical prejudice (involving the
essentialisation of groups) that serves to create social distance between
groups or to deny similarities between majorities and minorities (Moscovici
and Pérez 1997).
Recently, Chulvi and Pérez (2002) studied the social representations of
ethnic minorities, including Gypsies, and found that categorising them in
terms of nature as opposed to culture was more salient than evaluating
them in terms of positive and negative attributes. They found that humans
were characterised by reason, culture and autonomy, whereas animals were
represented by instinct, nature, and emotional dependence, with Gypsies
and other ethnic minorities being ascribed about a quarter of the positive
animal attributes. Chulvi and Pérez found that the typical traits assigned to
Gypsies suggested their having an essence different from that of humans,
which functioned to explain why they have maintained their specific
lifestyle despite centuries of forced cultural assimilation. The study showed
that Gypsies were represented as antisocial nomads with a questionable
morality and a preference for isolation within a self-enclosed universe
beyond the realm of the human species.
The process of ontologisation has obvious consequences for current
multicultural societies, since the non-assimilation of minorities might throw
them outside the boundaries of humanity. For example, Verkuyten (2001)
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 45

analysed the rhetorical strategies used by majority members in the

Netherlands to construct the behaviour and the practices of immigrants and
ethnic minorities as deviant from the norm (abnormal). One of the
strategies used was to present extreme cases of behaviour or violation of
social norms and basic values to justify judgements of abnormality and
accuse the minority. More importantly, majority members rejected the
argument of cultural diversity to explain differences in the behaviour of
ethnic minorities. Such an argument would have placed both groups
(majority and minority) in an intergroup perspective of evaluative
differences. Instead people categorised minorities outside the boundaries of
normal human behaviour (Chryssochoou 2004). Excluding the other from
the realm of humanity may have disturbing consequences: Tajfel (1981,
1984) argued that dehumanising the out-groups can serve to exterminate
them, as in the case of the Nazi Germany.
In another line of research, Leyens and his colleagues (Leyens et al.
2000, 2001) thought that if people have a tendency to essentialise social
groups they might do so not only at the level of cognitive abilities but also
in terms of their ability to feel certain emotions. They distinguished
between primary emotions such as fear or disgust which are considered in
common sense to be common to both animals and humans, and secondary
emotions such as pride or remorse which are socially constructed and are
attributed exclusively to humans. Leyens et al drew on this distinction to
explore the type of emotions that people attribute to in-group and out-
group. In a series of mostly experimental studies (Gaunt et al. 2002, Leyens
et al. 2001, Paladino et al. 2002), they found that people associated more
primary rather than secondary emotions with out-groups, while they
attributed more secondary than primary emotions to their in-group. They
called this phenomenon infrahumanisation or lesser perceived humanity of
the out-group, meaning that out-groups are perceived as less human than
the in-group. Contrary to ontologisation, infra-humanisation through the
differential attribution of emotions is not contingent on a history of failed
assimilation and conversion, and is supposed to happen with all out-groups,
regardless of their relationship with the in-group.
Despite this crucial difference, however, the two concepts
(ontologisation and infra-humanisation) are close in the sense that they
describe a process of denying humanity to social groups based on the
distinction between nature and culture. In that sense, it can be hypothesised
that a generally devalued group such as the Gypsies will be both
ontologised and infra-humanised. If this is the case, despite their difference,
46 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

the two concepts describe similar phenomena of dehumanisation. This is

precisely what the present study sought to explore.
Moreover, the present study undertook to investigate the Gypsy
minority in Britain and in Romania in order to examine the influence of
different histories on the discrimination of Gypsies. While in Britain the
Gypsies are a very small minority, in Romania they constitute an estimated
ten percent of the population. Equally, a cross-cultural in a Western
European and an Eastern European country study would counterbalance
any possible Western European bias in the data on the dehumanisation of
the Gypsies.
In particular, the present research proposed to investigate whether
ethnic majorities, British and Romanian, or the Gypsies, would be ascribed
more cultural, or human-like, or more natural, or animal-like,
characteristics2, in line with the thesis of ontologisation and whether they
would be attributed more primary or more secondary emotions, in line with
the concept of infrahumanisation.
Firstly, it was expected that more natural characteristics would be
attributed to the Gypsies than to the ethnic in-group, whereas more cultural
characteristics would be assigned to the in-group than to the Gypsies, and
that the Gyspies would be attributed more natural than cultural
characteristics. Secondly, it was hypothesised that more secondary
emotions would be attributed to the in-group than to the Gypsies, and that
the Gypsies will be attributed more primary than secondary emotions.
These hypotheses were expected to occur regardless of the nationality of
the participants.

Method

Pilot study
Initially a pilot study was carried out in Britain among 56
undergraduate psychology students. Half of them were asked to name 20
characteristics typical of humans and not of animals, 10 positive and 10
negative, while the other half were requested to name 20 characteristics
typical of animals and not of humans, 10 positive and 10 negative. The
most frequently mentioned characteristics were subsequently selected and
included in the main study: 5 positive human (friendly, compassionate,
intelligent, loyal, creative) 5 negative human (selfish, greedy, untruthful,
prejudiced, cruel), 5 positive animal (free, self-sufficient, unsophisticated,
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 47

adaptable, group-behaviour), and 5 negative animal (wild, noisy, dirty,

aggressive, dependent).
For practical reasons, no pilot study was carried out in Romania.
However, a post-hoc study undertaken with 37 Romanian participants
validated the results of the pilot study. The participants were requested to
rate the 20 characteristics as either human or animal. A t-test indicated a
significant difference between the human characteristics rated as human (M
= 8.24, SD = 1.51) and the human characteristics rated as animal (M = 3.29,
SD = 1.57), with t (36) = 33.06, p < 0.001. Another t-test revealed a
significant difference between the animal characteristics rated as animal (M
= 6.70, SD = 1.68) and the animal characteristics rated as human (M = 5.40,
SD = 2.52), with t (36) = 24.25, p < 0.001.
The 37 Romanian participants were also asked to rate the 20
characteristics on positivity and negativity. Their ratings coincided with the
British participants’ ratings, with the exception of unsophisticated, which
was rated negative by the Romanians. In addition, the Romanians were not
clear as to whether cruel and loyal were typically human and whether self-
sufficient and dependent were typically animal characteristics. Therefore
these attributes were retrieved from the analysis.

Participants
One hundred and fifty students, 73 British and 77 Romanian
participated in the study. Of the British sample, 13 were male and 62,
female, with ages ranging from 18 to 50, M = 21.21, SD = 5.46, Median =
19. Of the Romanian sample, 19 were male and 57, female, with one data
missing. Their ages ranged from 19 to 29, M = 21.82, SD = 1.66, Median =
21. All participants were British and Romanian citizens, respectively, and
no participants belonged to the Gypsy minority.

Procedure
Each participant responded to a questionnaire asking them to attribute a
range of emotions and a range of attributes to their respective in-group,
British or Romanian, respectively, and to the Gypsies. The emotions had
been selected to represent primary (joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust,
surprise, protectiveness) and secondary emotions (affection, pride,
admiration, remorse, conceit, nostalgia and rancour), as in Leyens et al
20013, while the attributes had been selected following a pilot study to
represent either characteristics that were particularly human or
characteristics that were shared by humans and animals (see pilot above).
48 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

The valence of the emotions and of the attributes had also been checked in
the pilot.
It was found that the British evaluated more positively the secondary
emotions (m=2.99) than did the Romanians (m=2.81) t (72) = 2.12, p<.05.
Also in general for the British both the primary (m=3.14) and the secondary
(m=3.32) emotions were judged as more important for people in their
country than for the Romanians (primary m=2.81; secondary m=2.96;
primary t (72) = 2.86, p<.01; secondary t (72) = 2.95, p<.01.

Results
Results are organised in two sections: ontologisation, and
infrahumanisation.

Ontologisation
The 2(nationality: British/Romanians) x 4(attributes: culture to in-
group/ culture to out-group/ nature to in-group/ nature to out-group)
ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor yielded a significant
main effect of attributes, F(3-444) = 115.29, p<.001 and a significant
interaction between attributes and nationality, F(3-444) = 6.73, p<.001
(Multivariate tests attributes F(2-147) = 156.7, p<.001, and attributes by
nationality F(2-147) = 6, p<.01). In this case the effect of nationality was
not significant (see table 1 for means and standards deviations).

Table 1
Means (and standard deviations) of the attribution of characteristics
Cult/ Cult/ Nat/ Nat/
Total
ingroup Gypsies ingroup Gypsies

British .24 (.19) .17 (.17) .21 (.16) .48 (.20) .27 (.14 )

Romanians .44 (.17) .21 (.17) .25 (.14) .56 (.20) .36 (.14 )

Total .34 (.21) .19 (.17) .23 (.15) .51 (.20)

Note. One-way ANOVAs revealed that the British and the Romanians differed on the
attribution of characteristics relating to culture when attributed to the in-group: culture in-
group F(1-148)= 45.13, p<.001, and to nature when attributed to the Gypsies: nature to
Gypsies F(1-148)= 5.64, p<.01, with Romanians assigning to their in-group more attributes
relating to culture and more attributes relating to nature to the Gypsies than their British
counterparts.
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 49

Further (see table 1 and figure 1), paired sample t-tests showed that the
British did not assign differently attributes relating to nature and culture to
their in-group. However, they followed the pattern expected by
ontologisation as they ascribed more attributes relating to culture to the in-
group than to the Gypsies, t (72) = 3.24, p<.01, less attributes relating to
nature to the in-group than to the Gypsies, t (72) = -9.40, p<.001, and more
attributes relating to nature than attributes relating to culture to the Gypsies,
t (72) = 14.11, p<.001.
Figure 1
Attribution of cultural and natural characteristics to the in-group and to Gypsies by
the British and the Romanians
,6

,5

,4

,3 TRAITS

culture ingroup

,2 culture gypsies

nature ingroup

,1 nature gypsies
British Romanian

With the Romanians, all differences were significant in the direction

expected by ontologisation (see table 1 and figure 1). They ascribed more
attributes relating to culture to the in-group than to the Gypsies, t (76) =
9.30, p<.001, less attributes relating to nature to the in-group than to the
Gypsies, t (76) = 12.55, p<.001, more attributes relating to nature than
attributes relating to culture to the Gypsies, t (76) = -12.74, p<.001, and
50 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

more attributes relating to culture than to nature to the in-group, t (76) =

8.75, p<.001.
Thus, from these results it can be safely concluded that both national
majorities ontologise the Gypsies in line with the first hypothesis.

Infrahumanisation
The 2(nationality: British/Romanians) x 4(emotions: primary to
ingroup/ primary to outgroup/ secondary to ingroup/ secondary to
outgroup) anova with repeated measures on the last factor yielded a
significant main effect of emotions F(2.46-364.04 Greenhouse–Geisser
correction) = 4.90, p<.01 and a significant interaction between emotions
and nationality F(2.46-363.04 Greenhouse–Geisser correction) = 13.42,
p<.001 (Multivariate tests emotions F(3-146)=4.40, p<.01 and emotions by
nationality F(3-146) = 14.47, p<.001). However, the effect of nationality
was not significant (see table 2 for details about the means and standard
deviations).

Table 2
Means (and standard deviations) of the attribution of Emotions

Primary/ Primary/ Secondary Secondary/ Total

ingroup Gypsies /ingroup Gypsies

British 1.76 (.89) 2.41 (.98) 2.41 (.83) 1.59 (.76) 2.04 (.04)

Romanian
2.02 (.79) 1.98 (.86) 2.01 (.98) 2.29 (.79) 2.08 (.04)
s

Total 1.9 (.85) 2.19 (.95) 2.20 (.93) 1.95 (.85)

Further (see table 2 and figure 2), paired sample t-tests showed that the
British followed the pattern expected by infrahumanisation as they
attributed less primary emotions to the in-group than to the Gypsies, t (72)
=-4.65, p<.001, more secondary emotions to the in-group than the to the
Gypsies, t (72) = 6.99, p<.001, more primary emotions than secondary
emotions to the Gypsies, t (72) = 5.47, p<.001 and more secondary
emotions to the ingroup than primary emotions, t (72) = 3.7, p<.001.
However, for the Romanians this was not true as the attribution of
primary and secondary emotions to the Gypsies approached significance
but the difference was on the opposite direction from the one expected, i.e.
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 51

more secondary than primary emotions were attributed to the Gypsies t (76)
= -1.92, p=.06. Moreover, the crucial attribution of secondary emotions
between ingroup and Gypsies was significant but again in the opposite
direction, i.e. more secondary emotions to the outgroup t (76) = -1.99,
p=.05. The results seem to indicate that Gypsies are not infra-humanised by
the Romanians. This contradicts the hypothesis according to which both
national groups will infra-humanise the Gypsies.

Figure 2
Attribution of primary and secondary emotions to in-group and to the Gypsies by
the British and the Romanians

2,6

2,4

2,2

2,0

1,8
primary ingroup

primary gypsies
1,6
secondary ingroup

1,4 secondary gypsies

British Romanian

Discussion
The present study examined the ontologisation and infrahumanisation
of the Gypsy minority by the British and the Romanian majorities. The
findings supported all three hypotheses relating to the thesis of
ontologisation, in both national samples: more cultural characteristics were
52 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

attributed to in-group than to the Gypsies, more natural characteristics were

assigned to the Gypsies than to the in-group, and more natural than cultural
characteristics were attributed to the Gypsies. These results therefore
suggest that the ontologisation of the Gypsies occurs in both Britain and
Romania, and, taking into account the previous research on the
ontologisation of Gypsies in Spain, it could be argued that the
ontologisation of Gypsies seems to constitute a pan-European phenomenon.
It could be said that this apparent cross-cultural dehumanisation of the
Gypsies may function as a common marker for cultural identity, as Pérez
and his colleagues suggest, or may reflect the low social status that the
Gypsy minority has across European countries.
Regarding infrahumanisation, the hypothesis according to which more
secondary emotions would be attributed to in-group than to out-group was
supported only for the British participants, as they attributed significantly
more secondary emotions to their in-group than to the Gypsies. However,
in the case of the Romanian participants, the hypothesis was not supported,
as the Romanians did not attribute significantly more secondary emotions
to their in-group than to the Gypsies. Similarly, the hypothesis according to
which the out-group would be attributed more primary than secondary
emotions was only supported by the British participants, who assigned
more primary than secondary emotions to the Gypsies. By contrast, the
Romanian participants attributed the Gypsies more secondary than primary
emotions, thus failing to support the hypothesis.
We have no explanation for the present findings which only partially
support the theory of infrahumanisation. The results seem to suggest that
the Gypsies are infrahumanised by the British, but not by the Romanians.
Consequently the present findings somewhat beg the question about the
universality of the process of infrahumanisation, and to a certain extent
challenge the assumption of infrahumanisation as a good indicator of
dehumanisation. Furthermore, given that the Romanians in this study
ontologised the Gypsies the absence of infrahumanisation from their part
raises the question concerning the relation between ontologisation and
infra-humanisation.
Although, only speculations can be advanced at this stage, a suggestion
can be made concerning the relation of these two concepts. Although, the
post-hoc tests showed that both the British and the Romanian participants
culturally valued the secondary emotions significantly more than the
primary ones, they also indicated that the British rated the secondary
emotions significantly more positively than did the Romanians. It could
therefore be argued that the British are treating the emotions as a more
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 53

valuable resource than the Romanians and they reserve them for their own
group. If in the Western world being human is constructed in contrast to the
animal then the characteristics believed as being uniquely human are more
positively valued (irrespective of their particular evaluative content). Thus,
these characteristics will be reserved to the ingroup in the same sense that
even negatively evaluated attributes that are, however, linked with agentic
state or with high status groups are associated to the in-group (Glick and
Fiske 2001). In this sense, the process of infrahumanisation consists in
denying valued symbolic resources (this time not cognitive but emotional)
to an out-group. The fact that human-like emotions are denied to the out-
group shows, perhaps, that animals, as a devalued out-group, are used to
delegitimise other out-groups, as was the case with the use of the attribute
Jew in Italy to characterise other groups (Volpato and Durante 2003). In
that sense, infrahumanisation, following an unequal distribution of
emotions, is not based necessarily on an essentialisation of the social group
but constitutes the expression of an evaluative prejudice.
This view of infra-humanisation does not deny the importance of the
antithesis Nature/Culture in Western common sense. On the contrary it
shows how much the identity of the human category is based on its
differentiation from its natural aspects. However, conceptualising infra-
humanisation as an expression of evaluative prejudice could allow,
perhaps, for results such as the ones displayed by the Romanians here who
ontologised the Gypsies but do not infra-humanised them.
In the present research we started with the idea that ontologisation and
infra-humanisation are different aspects of the same process of
dehumanisation. The results of our Romanian sample cast some doubts.
Why would the same people be ready to attribute more animal-like traits
than human-like traits to Gypsies but not more primary (animal-like) than
secondary (human-like) emotions? Perhaps the answer is to be found in a
closer examination of the concept of ontologisation and the semantic
qualities of the attributes.
In this study, following the literature, people were asked during a pilot
study to produce attributes either typically human or typically animal. The
attributes retained were friendly, compassionate, intelligent, creative,
greedy, selfish untruthful and prejudiced for humans and free,
unsophisticated, adaptable, group-behaviour, wild, noisy, dirty and
aggressive for the animal. However, if for methodological reasons people
were asked to produce these attributes in relation to humans and animals,
the phenomenon of ontologisation is not based on this distinction but on the
opposition between nature and culture. As discussed earlier nature is
54 Psicología Política, Nº 30, Mayo 2005

considered the primitive condition before human society (Williams, 1988),

and culture begins at the point at which humans surpass their natural
inheritance (Edgar and Sedgwick, 1999) and where the wild is
domesticated (Strathern, 1980). If we look closely at the attributes
produced spontaneously by the participants we could see that their content
reflects this division. From one part we have the free from societal
constrains, wild, noisy and dirty being that reacts instinctively (aggressive,
unsophisticated), lives as an aggregate (group behaviour) and passively
adapts itself (adaptable) to the situations. This representation characterises
the primitive state of nature. On the other hand, we have the intelligent and
creative being that, with these qualities, domesticates its natural instincts
and the natural forces; it constructs artefacts and can be friendly and
compassionate but also selfish and greedy, prejudiced and untruthful.
These are relational qualities that arise in a societal organised condition.
One could see the “division of the individual in what is constrain,
forbidden, civilised and what corresponds to the spontaneity, the pleasure,
and the indomitable force of the affective impulses” (Moscovici 1994: 25).
According to Moscovici (1994: 29) the rupture between nature and society
is to be found in the “amalgam between the individual, the animal, the
instinct and the collective from one part and the human, the reason and the
law on the other”. The former corresponds at the absence of order and
differentiation and is threatening whereas the latter represents societal
organisation and distinction.
Humans, in the Western thought (both common and scientific) are
expected to surpass the natural collective characterised by anarchy and to
evolve towards a societal collective viewed both as constrain and as an
accomplishment. Thus, those, as the Gypsies, that were not able to integrate
more complex forms of organisation belong to a separate ontology. Their
ontological status facilitates their exclusion, their discrimination and even
their extermination.
Of course, the results presented here can only be a starting point for
discussing these ideas. The present research is, in our knowledge, the first
were the infra-humanisation of an outgroup did not occur. More research is
needed to clarify the conditions under which the phenomenon is absent. In
particular, more research is needed in order to clarify the relation between
ontologisation and infra-humanisation. A first path to follow might be the
one suggested here, namely to investigate whether infra-humanisation is
part of a process of evaluative prejudice based on the use of the animals as
a devalued outgroup to delegitimise other groups and whether
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 55

ontologisation constitutes the outcome of a process of classification

organised by the antithesis between nature and culture.

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_____________

Notes
1
Regarding the concepts of civis and ordu, please refer to the article in The Guardian
regarding the Gypsies: Acceptable hatred: Beneath the enduring hostility to Gypsies lies an
ancient envy of the nomadic life. George Monbiot, Tuesday November 4, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1077154,00.html
2
Here, natural attributes are those shared by animals and humans, whereas cultural attributes
are uniquely humans.
3
Following the post-hoc study where participants in both countries were asked to judge the
emotions in relation to whether they were typically human or animal, it was found that
affection, although considered by Leyens et al. a secondary emotion was judged as a primary
emotion. In addition although disgust was considered in the literature as a primary emotion,
participants rated it as a secondary one. Thus, these two emotions did not take part in the
analysis.

Afrodita Marcu obtained her MSc in Social Psychology from the University of
Surrey, Guildford, in 2003. She is interested in how multicultural societies deal
with cultural diversity and the potential conflict brought about by cultural and
economic differences between majority and minorities. Her research interests
include prejudice against ethnic minorities, and the social psychological processes
involved in the delegitimization and dehumanization of ethnic minorities,
 Exclusion of ethnic groups from the realm of... 57

immigrants, and refugees. [email protected]

Xenia Chryssochoou is an associate professor at Panteion University in Athens,
2003. She has worked in France as an associate lecturer at the universities of Lille
and Paris and the Institute for Teacher Training in Reims and as lecturer at the
University of Surrey. Her research interests include: the social psychological
processes of mobility and migration in modern societies, justice issues and
resource allocation between different groups especially in the context of
intergroup conflict. She has published a book on Cultural Diversity. Its social
Psychology, 2004. [email protected]
Address. A Marcu Department of Psychology, School of Human Sciences,
University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, England