Asian Journal of Sociological Research

Gypsies have been a marginalized and persecuted minority for more than five centuries. The experiment carried out compares the influence of a victimized minority - which accommodates itself to the prevailing society of victims- with an active minority that opts for vindicate the rights that are already guaranteed to the majority of individuals by social system and by political or religion values. Following a hypothesis derived from pluralistic ignorance in racial attitudes, i.e. the belief that most are racist but not me, it was shown that when the majority in-group was accused of being racist, a victimized minority triggers more favorable attitudes toward Gypsies (i.e., support for affirmative action and other forms of compensation and transforms lay explanations of the causes of their marginalization) than an active minority.  However, when the accusation of being racist is made at the individual level, then the minority with a victimizing style triggers less favorable attitudes than the active minority.  We discuss the societal ethos that the new victimized minorities have introduced as regards majority-minority relationships.