This article was downloaded by: [Central Michigan University]On: 21 December 2014, At: 17:20Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

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Traits Attributions by WhiteStudents to Black FellowStudents Versus Blacks inGeneralAnn Redisch a & Theodore A. Weissbach aa Pomona College , USAPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Ann Redisch & Theodore A. Weissbach (1974) Traits Attributionsby White Students to Black Fellow Students Versus Blacks in General, The Journal ofSocial Psychology, 92:1, 147-148, DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1974.9923084

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 1974,92, 147-148.

TRAITS ATTRIBUTIONS BY WHITE STUDENTS TO BLACK FELLOW STUDENTS VERSUS BLACKS I N GENERAL*

Pomona College

ANN REDISCH AND THEODORE A. WEISSBACH

The attribution of traits to minority group people has been shown to be affected by at least two variables. One is the instructional format. Brigham’ found that when subjects were instructed “to list the trait attributions most commonly made by ‘others’ in our society, . . . responses concerning Negroes were considerably different from [more negative than] subjects’ own attribu- tions to Negroes [p. 631.” The second variable seeks to discover whether traits are assigned to individual representatives of a minority group as opposed to the group as a whole. Contrary to his prediction, Mann2 found that his sample of white, South African, university students assigned a trait to an individual even when the probability was quite low that a random member of the group possessed the trait.

Two predictions were made for this study: ( a ) subjects will avoid assign- ing traits to a group when that option is provided; ( b ) subjects will be more willing to assign traits to people they know than to some abstract group.

The subjects were 62 white college students. Half of the subjects rated blacks in general; the other half rated black students a t the college.

Subjects were asked to indicate whether blacks (or blacks at this college) tended to be more, about the same as, or less [of each of 12 traits] than other people (or other students at this college). The traits were chosen from Anderson’s list of trait-descriptive adjectives3 and roughly corresponded to those found in other studies of stereotypes. There were four positive traits (honest, intelligent, friendly, and reasonable), four neutral traits (easy-going, naive, religious, and talkative), and four negative traits (lazy, unreliable, hostile, and conceited). The traits were presented in random order.

The first hypothesis was that subjects would avoid trait attributions when possible. Operationally, this meant that subjects would choose the middle

* Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on October 19, 1972. Copyright, 1974, by The Journal Press.

1 Brigham, J. C. Racial stereotypes: Measurement variables and the stereotype-attitude relationship, J . Agpl. SOC. Psychol., 1972, 2, 63-76.

2 Mann, J. W. Inconsistent thinking about group and individuals. J . SOC. Psychol.,

a Anderson, N. H. Likableness ratings of 555 personality-trait words. J. Personal. SOC. 1967, 71, 235-245.

Psychol., 1968, 9, 272-219.

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category (about the same as) more frequently than the other two categories (more or less than). Of 722 responses obtained, 550 (or 76%) were middle category responses. Clearly, subjects preferred not to assign traits when that option was provided, since only 33% would have been expected in the middle category by chance.

The second hypothesis was that when trait attributions were made, they would be made more frequently for “known” blacks as opposed to blacks in general. For 11 of the 12 trait descriptive adjectives the frequency of extreme choices is greater for “blacks at the college” than “blacks in general” ( p <

One additional result was of interest. When extreme responses were made, they were almost uniformly more unfavorable than favorable toward blacks. For example, of the 32 extreme responses for friendly, 26 of 32 rated blacks less friendly; 33 of 33 extreme responses rated blacks more hostile; 10 of 10 rated blacks less reasonable.

As Amir4 has pointed out so clearly, contact between groups is no guarantee of more favorable intergroup attitudes. Though it appears as if most of our subjects rated blacks “the same as” other people (whites), those willing to make trait attributions to blacks made them in a negative, unfavorable manner.

Department of Psychology Pomona College Claremont, California 91711

.01) .

4 Amir, Y . Contact hypothesis in ethnic relations. Psychol. Bull., 1969, 71, 319-342.

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