An Experimental Investigation into the Nature of External "Roma" Categorization in Hungary

IntroductionThere is an ongoing discussion in the literature on the nature of the categorization process that results in sorting out objects and persons into groups. In case of persons, the categorization process depends on the group membership of the perceiver. In-groups tend to be perceived in contrast with out-groups. The former are to be seen more heterogeneous, and the latter are to be seen more homogeneous (Hewstone, 1996). In both cases, however, the question can be raised whether the representation of the group involved has essence existing independent of the perceiver or the representation of the group is just a construction of theperceiver.Theory-hypothesesEssentialism is a belief in a substance that is permanent, unalterable and eternal. According to essentialism people tend to believe that human attributes are immutable and are related to innate factors. Essentialist judgments are particularly prone to interpret group categories with reference to innate factors.Constructionism denies the prominence of inherent qualities in the formation of knowledge of social reality. According to constructionism, the world around us consists of social constructs lacking inherent qualities. Consequently, the perception of a social construct such as a group is contingent on the context rather on natural kind (Berger & Luckmann,1967).The nature of the categorization process into "Roma" and "non-Roma", on behalf of the non-Roma majority is far from being an issue of pure academic interest. Results of sociological studies demonstrate that the number of Roma minority group in Hungary is dependent on how the categorization has proceeded. Data on self-categorization show a less number of Roma than data resulting from categorization set by out-groups members (Csepeli & Simon, 2004). Consequently, from the perspective of the public policy dealing with the issue of Roma minority, it would be important to know how the non-Roma majority forms the judgment of being a Roma and what the essentialist and constructivist components of this judgmentare.MethodIn order to test the role of essentialism and constructionism in the formation of the judgment of being "Gypsy", we created four visual experimental conditions. In the first condition, a picture of a Gypsy teenage girl was shown. She was standing in front of a poor rural house. In the second condition, another picture was shown. In this picture, the same Gypsy girl was standing in front of an affluent rural house. In the third condition, a picture was shown again. In the picture, a non-Gypsy girl was to be seen standing in front of the poor rural house. In the fourth condition, a picture of the same non-Gypsy girl was shown standing in front of an affluent rural house.The population of research consists of the students living in the eastern part of Hungary. Based on student online list, sampling was conducted in April, 2012. More than seven thousands (N= 7276) students from University of Debrecen took part in the experiment which was carried out by online means.In order to test the differential perceptual effects of the exposure to the biological innate factor of body and the social construction of status, two dependent measures wereused.First dependent variable. Five emotional labels were offered. The subjects were asked to characterize the emotional state of the girls with the help of the labels. From the list of universal facial emotions described by Ekman, five labels were used such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear and surprise (Ekman, 2007).Second dependent variable. Eleven categories were offered to the subjects, who were asked to rate on a five point scale, each of the categories as to the degree of certainty of the categorization of the girl in the picture. The list of categories was as follows: Poor, Rich, Rural, Urban, "Ungarndeutsch", Transylvanian ethnic Hungarian, Roma, Slovak, Catholic, Reformed protestant. …