Portuguese towards Spaniards, Americans and Cape-Verdians in Portugal: social distance, stereotypes and predisposition to attitudinal change

Abstract

The article presents results of a study concerning national identity and the representations of some exogroups in Portugal – social distance, stereotypes and predisposition to attitudinal change. The 446 Portuguese students who participated in the study – 241 from high school, 205 from college, 194 female and 252 male – were aged from fourteen to thirty-six. The instrument used was a questionnaire with seven versions, according to the comparison exogroups: Spaniards, Americans or Cape--Verdians. Considering the results, the concept of varied asymmetry was introduced, and this concept pretends to express the idea that the same group may assume the dominant position in a certain comparison context and that of the dominated position in another different one.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v20i2.393