The Role of Values in Attitudes towards Violence: Discrimination against Moroccans and Romanian Gypsies in Spain

The first objective of this study was to investigate whether police violence is more tolerated when the victim is a member of a social minority (e.g., Moroccan immigrants and Romanian Gypsies in Spain) than when the victim is a member of the social majority (e.g., Spaniards). The second objective was to use Schwartz value theory to examine the moderating role of values on attitudes towards tolerance of police violence. The participants were 207 sociology and social work students from a public university in Madrid. Overall, in this study, police violence was more accepted when the victim was a member of a social minority; F(2, 206) = 77.91, p = .001, eta(2)(p) = 0.433, and in general, values moderated this acceptance. Thus, greater adherence to the conservation and self-promotion values subsystems would strengthen support for police violence towards a social minority member. On the other hand, greater adherence to the openness to change and self-transcendence subsystems diminish this support.