Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 10. Quantitative Studies of Race Attitudes - 1. Existing Studies of Race Attitudes - 2. The Empirical Study of Valuations and Beliefs
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Appendix lo. Studies of Race Attitudes 1137
The studies correlating friendliness toward the Negro with educational status and
with experience regarding Negroes do in a general way what certain other studies do in
a more specific way. These latter studies attempt to find out whether the possession of
certain information or misinformation about Negroes in a given situation affects a white
person’s attitudes toward Negroes in that situation. There are relatively few studies of
this type. Related to these studies are those which attempt to find out whether race
prejudice is a general attitude which applies to most situations or whether it is a group
of attitudes each of which applies only to a specific situation. An interesting study of
this sort was that by Bolton in which the conclusion was drawn that a “group of
Southern students ar-e much more liberal toward the economic, the political and the
educational rights of the Negro than towards social intermixture with the race,” and,
therefore, that the latter should be measured as a distinct attitude.®
2. The Empirical Study of Valuations and Beliefs
The paramount importance attached to observing and measuring valuations and
beliefs in the Negro problem by means of scientifically controlled research must be
clear from the Introduction and Appendix i of this book. Unfortunately the results
of quantitative studies of opinions and attitudes regarding this aspect of the Negro
problem are meager. The most general conclusion from a survey of the existing studies
regarding the relation between valuations and beliefs is that they have not added any-
thing significant to our knowledge.** They have not yet succeeded in quantifying our
general common-sense notions on the subject. The main explanation is undoubtedly
that, until now, not much work has been done in this particular field.®
Another general defect is that the studies which have been made usually have been
planned in isolation from both the general social study of the Negro and the political
battle about his status. They have, therefore, not had a perspective which gives relevance
to the questions asked, and they have not been prepared by the working out of consistent
schemes of scientific hypotheses. This is the more natural and, indeed, the more defen-
sible, since the studies carried out have usually had an experimental character and have
been more concerned with perfecting the tools of measurement than with the conclu-
sions to be obtained. In the main this holds true also of the mass public opinion polls.
Particularly when asking Negroes for their opinions
—^but also when asking whites for
theirs on the Negro problem—there are a number of purely technical difficulties which
as yet have not been overcome.
Instead of indulging in further negative criticism, we shall develop briefly certain
positive suggestions for opinion research as they have arisen in our study of the Negro
problem. At the outset it should be remembered that an average opinion in regard to
the Negro problem, as does every other opinion, contains two elements which are of
different character: (i) beliefs concerning reality which can be true or untrue, com-
*Euri Relle Bolton, “Measuring Specific Attitudes towards the Social Rights of the
Negro,** The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (January-March, 1937), p. 396.
**
A summary and evaluation of these studies has been made for our study by Horowitz,
of, cit,^ manuscript pages 115, 123-148.
® It should be clear that our statement does not apply to the whole range of attitude and
public opinion measurement, but solely to this activity regarding the Negro problem. The
measurement of attitudes and public opinion has contributed much both to scientific and to
practical knowledge outside the Negro problem, and is now showing amazingly rapid
advancement in present achievement and tremendous possibilities for future achievement
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
