Social response to aporophobia: challenges in social intervention

Aporophobia, or aversion to the poor, is a discriminatory phenomenon that causes great social harm di-rectly to its victims, given the consequences of the victimization suffered, and to the entire community in the form of social dehumanization that assumes and normalizes such behaviour. This work analyses social perceptions in relation to the knowledge of aporophobia and the emotional impact caused by aporophobic events in comparison with other victimizing events. An ad hoc questionnaire has been designed to differentiate, in the first phase, the assessment of knowledge of aporophobia, and in the second phase, the emotional impact of various news items. The second phase aimed to analyse the emotional impact of said news items, distinguishing between 1) si-tuations with actual aporophobic victimization; 2) neutral situations which, albeit without victimization by aporophobia, are publicized using names associated with these behaviours and groups of people, such as "homeless ", indigent and/or vagrant; and finally, 3) situations that neither allude to nor are associated with aporophobia. A total of 1,735 people over the age of 18 voluntarily participated in the survey, 56% of whom were women. Participants' ages were divided into three groups: 34.5% between 18 and 30 years old, 34.8% between 31 and 65 years old, and 30.7% over 65 years old. The results show a general lack of awareness of the concept of aporophobia and a greater emotional impact of aporophobic events than other kinds. These findings were significantly higher in the case of women. This research demonstrates the need to design action aimed at 1) providing exhaustive and real infor-mation about the phenomenon; 2) raising awareness about its implications and consequences, and 3) training in the acquisition and development of skills such as empathy in order to generate a culture of social rejection of aporophobia.