Prejudice and discrimination toward multiple minority groups in Spain

"A key societal challenge in Spain, as in many parts of the world, entails preventing discrimination and social exclusion of minority and disadvantaged groups in society, as well as curbing extremism. Recent political trends in Spain reflect a surge in extreme attitudes and discriminatory behaviour towards minority groups, especially immigrants. To address this challenge, this research project will use a highly innovative design that bridges cutting edge insights from the fields of psychology, political science, sociology and behavioural economics, and that triangulates three unique quantitative data collection methods (i.e., a general population survey, an implicit association test, and a series of experiments). Two key factors central to understanding discrimination, social exclusion and far-right attitudes are 1) understanding the antecedents and drivers thereof, and 2) identifying strategies to prevent, minimize or overcome this. In addressing both these factors, the project will focus on the role of perceived threat as antecedent of, and on intergroup contact as a strategy to prevent discrimination, social exclusion and far-right attitudes, respectively.
The project will focus on a central antecedent of discrimination and far-right attitudes, identity threat, as well as a key strategy to prevent such negative attitudes, intergroup contact; it will also examine previously unexplored conditional factors that explain the complex interplay between contact and threat. The project will focus centrally on attitudes toward immigrants but will also consider attitudes towards other disadvantaged and/or minority groups that are prominent in the current far-right discourse in Spain (e.g., attitudes toward women’s rights, Muslims). In so doing, the results of this project will offer applied recommendations to policy makers and other key stakeholders seeking to prevent discrimination, social exclusion and far-right extremism in Spain."