Spanish Journal of Psychology (2015), 18, e63, 1–12. © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid doi:10.1017/sjp.2015.65 Prejudice against immigrants, or xenophobia, can be framed in the social ideology of exclusion, although it contains characteristics pertaining to rejection of for- eigners, depending on the target group of prejudice and discrimination. In the Spanish case, negative atti- tudes towards certain groups of immigrants, such as Moroccans and Gypsies of Romanian origin, have been increasing in recent years to the extent that they are perceived as an obstacle to cultural, religious, and ethnic uniformity, a threat to the national identity, and often are regarded as dangerous delinquents and as competitors for economic resources limited by the current economic crisis (Bermejo, 2004; Cea D'Ancona, 2005, 2007, 2009; Cea D'Ancona & Valles Martinez, 2009; Checa & Arjona, 2013; López, 2012). These preju- diced attitudes translate into discriminatory practices that make these immigrant groups the ones who have the highest rates of unemployment, suffer greater discrimination in the job market, and have a greater number of police records and arrests, placing a strong social stigma on them (Camino et al., 2013; Cea D'Ancona, Valles, & Eseverri, 2013; IIEAMM, 2010; López, 2012). According to Villanueva, Domínguez and Revilla (1995), prejudice against immigrants has three distinct moments in time. First would be the construction of the object (immigrants), as threatening and differing from the customs and norms of the ingroup; second, the possible disposition to act violently against these “strange and despicable” individuals, either on the part of ordinary civilians or the police; and third, sub- sequent justifications for the violent actions, which are repeated, at times, in the form of repressive speech, classifying immigrants, specifically Moroccans and Romanian Gypsies in Spain, as threatening and dan- gerous individuals who “bear” a distinct mark, indel- ible and clearly of the type of characteristic attributed to them, by the mere fact of being what they are. An interesting aspect in the study of the psychoso- cial processes that give rise to the formation of preju- diced attitudes towards certain groups of immigrants is that of values. For Schwartz and Bilsky (1987), values are defined as “(a) concepts or beliefs, (b) about desir- able end states or behaviors, (c) that transcend specific situations, (d) guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and (e) are ordered by relative importance” (p. 551). According to Schwartz (1992, 2006), what gives rise to and organizes values in different cultures The Role of Values in Attitudes towards Violence: Discrimination against Moroccans and Romanian Gypsies in Spain José Luis Álvaro 1 , Thiago Morais de Oliveira 2 , Ana Raquel Rosas Torres 2 , Cicero Pereira 3 , Alicia Garrido 1 and Leoncio Camino 2 1 Universidad Complutense (Spain) 2 Universidade Federal da Paraíba (Brazil) 3 Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal) Abstract. 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, η p 2 = 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. Received 3 May 2014; Revised 7 January 2015; Accepted 21 January 2015 Keywords: social prejudice, ethnic discrimination, police violence, values. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to José Luis Álvaro. Department of Social Psychology. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 28223. Madrid (Spain). E-mail: jlalvaro@ucm.es This research has been financially supported by Capes (Coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nivel superior 307/2015) and SGU (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte -Secretaría General de Universidades- PHBP14/00055) which are gratefully acknowledged.