Journal of Personality and Social Psycholoey1965, Vol. 2, No. 6, 877-882

ETHNOCENTRISM AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THEPHYSICALLY DISABLED

MARK A. CHESLER *University of Michigan

Much of the psychological literature in the field of intergroup relations gen-eralizes from investigations conducted with a limited number of ethnicminorities. This study attempts to derive a measure of general ethnocentrism,and compares this with individuals' expressed attitudes toward a nonethnicminority group, the physically disabled. Physically disabled persons are oftentargets of interpersonal and intergroup prejudice and constitute a minorityoutgroup rarely investigated. 4 dimensions of ethnocentrism: race, religion,nationality, and socioeconomic class, as well as 13 specific groups, were thetargets of similar attitudinal expressions. Individuals who expressed ethnocen-trism toward 1 specific minority group, or on 1 intergroup dimension, ex-pressed similar attitudes toward other groups and dimensions. Moreover, in-dividuals who manifested high ethnocentrism, or high rejection of outgroups,also expressed rejection of the physically disabled.

The psychological disciplines have long beeninterested in the role of personality factors inethnic prejudice and intergroup relations (e.g.,Allport, 19S8; Doob & Sears, 1939; Frenkel-Brunswik & Sanford, 1945; Harding, Kutner,Proshansky, & Chein, 1954). Part of the evi-dence supporting the psychologists' emphasis onpersonality variables has been the consistent dis-covery of positive and statistically significantrelationships between attitudes directed towardone specific minority group, and attitudes ex-pressed toward various other minorities (Adorno,Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 19SO;Lindzey & Rogolsky, 19SO). This phenomenonsuggests that the source of prejudice lies morewithin the organism than in external and objec-tive conditions, and that attitudes toward variousminority groups tend to be organized into a co-herent pattern and then expressed in a mutuallysupportive and consistent manner. The purposeof this study is to explore some of these conten-tions by assessing individuals' attitudes towarda variety of ethnic, as well as nonethnic, minor-ity groups.

Several contemporary theorists suggest thatbeliefs, attitudes, and behavior tend to be inte-grated in meaningful and sensible ways (Heider,1958; Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955), and servea useful function in aiding the organism to pur-sue and attain certain goals (Katz, 1960; Peak,1960). Attitudes toward ethnic groups may be

1 This research was carried out while the author

was a Research Assistant at the Human ResourcesFoundation, Albertson, New York, and a graduatestudent, at Hofstra University. Appreciation is ex-tended to H. E. Yuker and J. R. Block for theiradvice and assistance.

treated in much the same manner as other clus-ters of attitudes. Allport and Kramer (1946), forinstance, suggest that a person's prejudices aredeeply ingrained in his personal philosophy, arereflections of a broader system of belief, and areintegrated into the very fabric of his personality.More specifically, Sullivan and Adelson (1954)and Rose (1951) observe that intolerance towardone minority group is usually accompanied byintolerance towards other minority groups.

Frenkel-Brunswik and Sanford (1945) reporta correlation of +.75 between anti-Semitic senti-ment and the rejection of other minority groups.These findings were later supported by the moreextensive research enterprise conducted byAdorno and his colleagues (1950). In the latterstudy, anti-Semitic sentiment, anti-Negro senti-ment, patriotism or nationalism, and generalattitudes toward minorities yielded intercorrela-tions ranging from +.74 to +.83. These findingsled the authors to state that there was evidencefor the "generality of the ethnocentric approachto group relations [p. 122]." Campbell and Mc-Candless (1951) conclude, from a correlationalanalysis of the subtests of the California E Scaleand several other personality and attitude tests,that there is "a general factor among most if notall attitudes toward other ethnic groups [p. 90]."The ethnic groups so consideredJews, Mexi-cans, Negroes, English, Japaneseall elicitedattitudes that were significantly positively cor-related. Both Bray (1950), utilizing the Levin-son-Sanford Anti-Semitism Scale and the LikertAnti-Negro Scale, and Prothro (1952), using theGrice-Remmcrs generalized at t i tude scale, reportsignificant positive correlations between the ex-pression of anti-Semitic sentiment and anti-Negro

877

878 BRIEF ARTICLES

sentiment. Bettelheim and Janowitz (1950) alsofind a pattern of similarity between the corre-lates of anti-Semitic and anti-Negro attitudes.The latter authors conclude that not only werepersonality factors that are related to the ex-pression of one attitude related to the expressionof the other, but personality characteristics un-related to one of these attitudes are also unre-lated to the other. Finally, Rokeach (1960) cor-roborates these conclusions and further statesthat "rejection of the Negro is but a special caseof a wider rejection of all people, 'regardless ofrace, creed, or color' [p. 145]." These findingsare consistently upheld in the literature, exceptin a few studies where strong social norms andstandards modify the relationship. Prothro andPettigrew (1959), for instance, report findingSoutherners anti-Negro, but not necessarily anti-Semitic or ethnocentric in general. In theseSouthern studies, anti-Negro sentiment can beseen more as a function of sociocultural influ-ences than personality factors. Despite theseinfluences, psychological reports clearly suggestthat personality differences with regard to ethno-centrism exist in all situations. In general, theethnocentric individual tends to hold his ownethnic group in high esteem, and to reject mostother groups.

In addition to the problem of generalizing toa wide range of specific ethnic minority groups,a well-developed theory of intergroup relationsmust handle problems of ingroup-outgroup rela-tions that are not primarily ethnic in character.Therefore, a principal concern here is the evalu-ation of attitudes toward identifiable individualswho are members of outgroups other than ethnicoutgroups.

Prejudice and the Physically HandicappedOne such outgroup consists of physically handi-

capped persons who are often subject to the sameintolerant behavior as are members of ethnicminorities. However, the physically handicappedare not generally considered as an outgroup, andcomparatively little research has been donetreating them as such. Wright (1960), in hersummary of the psychological aspects and effectsof physical disability, remarks that disabledpersons have much in common with members ofother minority groups. Barker's (1948) earlywork in this area is even more explicit: "thephysically disabled person is in a position notunlike that of the Negro, the Jew, and otherunder-privileged racial and religious minorities;he is a member of an under-privileged minority[p. 31]." Barker and his colleagues (Barker,Wright, Meyerson, & Gonich, 1953) further re-

port that persons with various disabilities wereunable to find adequate employment and wereafforded an inferior legal status and rights as aresult of "irrational prejudice." Thus it seemsthat the handicapped person experiences some ofthe same social rejection and ostracism that isexperienced by members of ethnic minoritygroups.

Recent empirical studies on attitudes towardthe disabled support these general contentions.Handel (1960) studied attitudes toward blindpersons and concluded that common stereotypesof the blind person usually place him in an in-ferior social role. The author further reflects onthe tone of his own analysis and remarks thatthis report "sounded as though we were consid-ering a problem of race relations instead of dis-ability [p. 363]." A similar study was under-taken by Himes (1960), who adapted the Bo-gardus social distance scale for use with blindstudents and collegiate normals (Bogardus, 1927).His findings indicate that the more intimate theproposed relationship with a blind person, themore clearly and intensely is he rejected by thephysically normal. What Bogardus finds for eth-nic outgroups Himes finds with regard to blindpersons.

Cowen, Underberg, and Verrillo (1958) presentfurther evidence for a common factor in atti-tudes toward both ethnic and disability groups.Starting with their locally developed scale meas-uring attitudes towards blindness, Cowen and hiscolleagues tested several groups of individualswith a series of items selected from the Cali-fornia E Scale and F Scale. They find that nega-tive attitudes toward the blind correlate positivelywith negative attitudes toward Negroes, towardother minority groups, and with positive authori-tarian attitudes. Attitudes toward religious andracial minorities are seen to have determinantssimilar to those of attitudes toward the blind.

These studies (Cowen et al., 1958; Handel,1960; Himes, 1960) support the view that atti-tudes expressed toward physically disabled indi-viduals have much in common with attitudes ex-pressed toward ethnic minorities. Some of thestudies have compared several disability groups,or generalized attitudes toward the disabled, witha single ethnic minority sentiment. Others havecompared attitudes toward single disabilitygroups with generalized ethnic group attitudes.Those using a single disability group suffer fromthe same lack of generalizability noted earlierwith regard to ethnic groups. Himes himself sug-gests that "each physical disabilitydeafnessand crippleness as well as blindness-is signifi-cantly, though differently, stereotyped [p. 55]."

BRIEF ARTICLES 879

Thus, the use of attitudes toward the blind asevidence for a common expression of attitudestoward all disabled groups needs to be furthersubstantiated.

The literature indicates that attitudes towardethnic minorities may be general in characterand should be expressed in a relatively commonfashion towards a variety of outgroups. Hypothe-sis 1, therefore, states that: Individuals who ex-hibit ethnocentric attitudes toward one particu-lar minority group, will express similar attitudestoward a variety of other outgroupsreligious,racial, socioeconomic, or nationality groups.

The literature further suggests that physicallydisabled persons represent a minority group, anoutgroup, in the American culture. If ethno-centrism is general in character, the outgroup ofphysically disabled persons should be subject tothe same interpersonal rejection and negativesentiment as other, ethnically determined, out-groups. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 states that:Individuals who express ethnocentric attitudestoward various outgroups will express similarattitudes toward physically disabled persons.

METHOD

The Intergroup Relations Scale (IRS) was de-veloped by the author as a measure of an individual'sattitudes toward a variety of minority groups. It isa Likert-type scale consisting of 34 items. The sub-ject indicates the degree of his agreement or dis-agreement with each statement on a 6-point scale.The score for the entire scale, or for each of foursubscales, indicates the degree of acceptance orrejection of minority groups.

The items in the IRS are slight modifications ofstatements selected from the Levinson-Sanford Anti-Semitism scale (Levinson & Sanford, 1944) and theNegro and Minority subscales of the CaliforniaEthnocentrism Scale (Adorno et al., 1950). Threejudges, research psychologists, selected the itemsused in the IRS from the total of 76 items availablefrom these original sources. The criteria for selectionincluded specification that the items: were wordedso as to be amenable to modification for use in thecurrent study, and had discriminated well in previousstudies. Modification in the current study involvesthe deletion of the named minority group and therandom insertion of a new group.

Some statements could not be reworded andmodified for purposes of this study and were there-fore eliminated; for example, "The true Christiancan never forgive the Jews for their crucifixion ofChrist." If the Iwo italicized groups were deletedno other minorities could be randomly substitutedand still have the full statement make any sense. Anexample of a stem that was used is the following:"The Jewish problem is so deep and general thatone often doubts that democratic methods can eversolve it." In this example, Jewish could be deleted

and Irish, Negro, or Catholic randomly assigned,and the full statement would still be meaningful.

Groups were randomly assigned to these nega-tively valued stems in random order to insure thatthere was no "necessary" relation between the groupcharacteristic, and the specific group with whichit was to be associated. Thirteen groups were utilizedas targets in the IRS. These groups represented themajor racial, religious, social class divisions, andseveral of the most prominent nationality groups inthe United States. Specifically, the targets were:Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious preferences;Oriental and Negro racial groups; upper, middle, andlower socioeconomic classes; and German, Italian,Irish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican nationalities. Eachof the three religious groups was randomly assignedto three statements, resulting in a religious subscaleof 9 items. The two racial groupings were randomlyassigned to three statements each, making a racialsubscale of 6 items. Each social class was randomlyassigned to three items, making a subscale of 9items. Finally, each of the five nationalities wasrandomly assigned to two statements, resulting in anationality subscale of 10 items. The establishmentof four separate subscales permits an analysis of thegenerality of ethnocentrism as it is manifest in thesedifferent outgroup dimensions, and a test of thehypothesis that persons who are prejudiced withrespect to religious groups will also manifest na-tional origin, social class, and racial prejudice.

The Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale(ATDP) was designed to measure the way indi-viduals view persons who are physically disabled(Yuker, Block, & Campbell, 1960). This scale isrepresented as measuring the extent to which thedisabled person is seen as different from the physi-cally normal person. Wright (1960) explains that, inthe language of interpersonal relations, to be differ-ent or set apart often signifies rejection. The ATDP,then, should provide a "general measure of preju-dice toward the physically disabled [Yuker et al.,1960, p. 13]." The ATDP consists of 20 Likert-typestatements, and the subject indicates the degree ofhis agreement or disagreement with each item. Eachstatement suggests that disabled persons are eitherthe same as, or different from, nondisabled personsin their personality or need for special social rela-tions. For instance, one such item is: "Disabledpeople are more easily upset than nondisabled peo-ple." Agreement with this item suggests an emo-tional difference between physically disabled peopleand nondisabled people.

The ATDP has been found to be highly corre-lated with the degree of contact between subjectsand disabled persons. Subjects who have had con-tact with disabled persons in their family or workplace generally manifest lower scores than thosepersons who have not had such intimate contact(Yuker et al., 1960). Unpublished studies at Hof-stra University indicate that students change theirattitudes toward the disabled after they have beenexposed to a semester's instruction by a well-likedand competent instructor who is physically handi-capped.

880 BRIEF ARTICLES

TABLE 1PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE SUB-

SCALES OP THE IRS AND BETWEEN THESUBSCALES AND THE FULL IRS

Scale

IRSRaceReligionNationalitySocial Class

IRS

+.82**+.82**+.88**+.81**

Race

+ .59**+ .69**+.51**

Religion

+ .64**+ .58**

Nationality

+ .53**

**p < .01.

Both the IRS and the ATDP were administeredto samples of 11 Hofstra University students en-rolled in introductory psychology courses, and 243high-school students attending a week long con-ference on human relations. The National Conferenceof Christians and Jews (1960) sponsors this humanrelations program in the expectation that someindividuals' attitudes will change and other indi-viduals can be provided with the means for the ex-pression and fruition of their values. Therefore, thehigh-school students are probably atypical of theadolescent school population in terms of their in-terests in intergroup problems, and their leadershipactivities in school or community organizations. Thehigh-school population was asked to respond tothe instruments immediately upon their arrival atthe conference site, prior to their exposure to theNCCJ's education program.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe high school and college populations did not

differ significantly in their scores on the twoscales. The mean for the college population onthe IRS was 39.64, for the high-school popula-tion it was 41.64 (ns). On the ATDP scale thecollege mean was 75.44 and the high school mean,77.21 (MS). We have already noted that thesehigh-school students are atypical of the adoles-cent school population and are probably morelike the collegiate sample than a random sampleof high-school-age youngsters. In view of thesefindings, all further operations combine these

TABLE 2ATDP MEANS AND CRITICAL RATIOS BY SEX AND

CONTACT WITH DISABLED PERSONS

SexMaleFemale

Contact with disabledKnow disabled personsDon't know disabled persons

N

108177

103217

M

73.8978.36

80.0175.2-!

/

2.54*

2.59**

TABLE 3PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE

ATDP, AND THE IRS AND THESUBSCALES OF THE IRS

IRSIRS-RaceIRS-ReligionIRS-NationalityIRS-Social Class

ATDP

-.52**-.45**- .40**-.43**-.46**

** p < .01.

subpopulations into a single population with anN of 320.

An index of the reliability of the IRS wasobtained for the subsample of Hofstra Univer-sity students. The uncorrected Spearman-Brownsplit-half reliability coefficient is +.84, whencorrected for attenuation, +.91. This reliabilitycoefficient is comparable with the similar cor-rected coefficients for the California Anti-Semi-tism Scale (+.92) and the California E Scale(+.91) (Adorno et al., 19SO, pp. 73, 112). Cron-bach (19S1) has suggested the coefficient alphaas a homogeneity or internal consistency meas-ure. The coefficient alpha can be applied to sub-tests in the following manner:

SF sul>te,sts~

* P < .05.**P < .01.

where V is the variance and n is the number ofsubtests. The coefficient alpha obtained for theIRS is +.66, indicating, roughly, the amount ofvariance attributable to a single factor. Thesemanipulations suggest there is considerable homo-geneity among responses to the items in the IRS.Persons who respond a certain way to one out-group arc likely to respond in a similar fashionto other outgroups.

The correlation matrix in Table 1 presents theproduct-moment correlations among the four sub-scales of the IRS, and between each of the sub-scales and the full scale. Intercorrelations amongthe four subscales range from +.51 to +.69,exhibiting moderate to high degrees of positiverelationship. The correlations between the sub-scales and the full scale range from +.81 to+.88, representing a high degree of relationship.All of these correlation coefficients are statisti-cally different from zero (p < .01).

The indication that measures of all four di-mensions of ethnocentrism -racial, religious, na-tionality, and social class correlate positivelysignificantly with each other and with the totalscale is a direct confirmation of the initial hy-pothesis. These findings suggest that individuals

BRIEF ARTICLTCS 881

who express ethnocentrism toward racial groups,are also likely to express such attitudes towardreligious groups, toward nationality groups, andtowards social class divisions. Both interitem andinterscale correlations indicate that ethnocen-trism is expressed to outgroups in general, ratherthan to only specific types of outgroups.

In all the above cases, the social class sub-scale showed the lowest intercorrelations. Thereason may be that social class is probably theleast obvious and most fluid interpersonal cate-gory. Races can be distinguished by their physi-cal characteristics, and religious and nationalitygroups are usually identifiable by distinctive cus-toms and traditions. The social class groups areprobably not so easily identifiable, and thereforenot as pinpointed as more distinctive outgroups.In the American culture, it is probably easier fora person to change his social class than to changeon any one of the other three dimensions. Indi-viduals can shift from one class to another, andtherefore the membership of a given class can-not be identified quite as consistently as canmembers of other outgroups.

Yuker et al. (1960) report that females scorehigher on the ATDP than do males and personswho have had contact with disabled persons tendto score higher than persons who have not hadsuch contact. Data from the present study whichare relevant to these findings are presented inTable 2.

Table 2 substantiates the findings of Yuker etal. (1960). Females scored significantly higheron the ATDP than males (p < .OS), indicatinggreater acceptance of the disabled outgroup mem-bers. Further, people who have had contact withdisabled individuals scored significantly higher,that is, showed greater acceptance, than personswithout such contacts (p < .01).

Table 3 presents product-moment correlationsbetween the IRS and the ATDP. AH correlationsare in the hypothesized direction, since highscores on the IRS indicate ethnocentrism andlow scores on the ATDP indicate rejection of thedisabled. The full IRS manifests the greatest co-efficient of correlation with the ATDP, .52.The subscale correlations range from .40 to.46. All these correlation coefficients are sta-tistically different from zero beyond the .01level, and thus support Hypothesis 2.

These results suggest that for some purposesthe physically disabled can be conceptualized asa minority group subject to many of the sameattitudinal and behavioral predispositions as areethnic minorities. Our findings regarding generalcategories of disabled persons support Himes'(1960) and Handel's (1960) results regarding

particular types of physical handicaps. The re-sults also support those authors who suggest thatethnocentrism, or prejudice, is a general phe-nomenon expressed towards a wide variety ofoutgroups and is not narrowly focused on one oranother particular minority group.

REFERENCESADORNO, T. W., FRENKEL-BRUNSWIK, ELSE, LEVIN-

SON, D. J., & SANFORD, R. N. The authoritarianpersonality. New York: Harper, 1950.

ALLPORT, G. W. The nature of prejudice. New York:Doubleday-Anchor, 1958.

ALLPORT, G. W., & KRAMER, B. M. Some roots ofprejudice. Journal of Psychology, 1946, 22, 9-39.

BARKER, R. G. The social psychology of physicaldisability. Journal of Social Issues, 1948, 6, 28-3S.

BARKER, R. G., WRIGHT, BEATRICE, MEYERSON, L., &GONICH, M. N. Adjustment to physical handicapand illness: A survey of the social psychology ofphysique and disability. Bulletin of the SocialScience Research Council, 1953, No. 55.

BETTELHEIM, B., & JANOWITZ, M. The dynamics ofprejudice. New York: Harper, 19SO.

BOGAEDUS, E. S. Race friendliness and social dis-tance. Journal of Applied Sociology, 1927, 11,272-287.

BRAY, D. W. The prediction of behavior from twoattitude scales. Journal of Abnormal and SocialPsychology, 1950, 45, 64-84.

CAMPBELL, D. T., & MCCANDLESS, B. Ethnocentrism,xenophobia and personality. Human Relations,1951, 4, 185-192.

COWEN, E. L,, UNDERBERG, RITA, & VERKILLO, R. T.The development and testing of an attitudes toblindness scale. Journal of Social Psychology, 1958,48, 297-304.

CEONBACH, L. J. Coefficient alpha and the internalstructure of tests. Psychomelrika, 1951, 16, 297-335.

DOOB, L., & SEARS, R. Factors determining subjectbehavior and the overt expression of aggression.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1939,34, 293-313.

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HANDEL, A. F. Community attitudes and adjust-ment to disability. Outlook for the Blind, 1960,54, 361-367.

HARDING, J., KUTNER, B., PROSHANSKY, H., & CHEIN,I. Prejudice and ethnic relations. In G. Lindzey(Ed.), Handbook of social psychology. Vol. 2.Special fields and applications. Cambridge, Mass.:Addison-Wesley, 1954. Pp. 1021-1061.

HEIDER, F. The psychology of interpersonal relations.New York: Wiley, 1958.

HIMES, J. B. Measuring social distance in relationswith the blind. Outlook for the Blind, 1960, 54,54-58.

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LEVINSON, D. J., & SANFORD, R. N. A scale for themeasurement of anti-Semitism. Journal of Psy-chology, 1944, 17, 339-370.

LINDZEY, G., & ROGOLSKY, S. Prejudice and theidentification of minority group membership.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1950,45, 37-53.

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(Received June 24, 1964)

Journal oj Personality and Social Psychology1965, Vol. 2, No. 6, 882-884

DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS VERSUS DISSONANCE REDUC-TION AS DETERMINANTS OF FAILURE-

SEEKING BEHAVIOR

IRWIN SILVERMAN AND CHARLES MARCANTONIO

State University of New York at Buffalo

Based on Ward and Sandvold's rcinlerpretation of Aronson and Carlsmith'sfindings, the failure-expectancy condition of the latter study was replicatedwith reliability-validity emphasis included for one group and excluded foranother. In contrast to Ward and Sandvold's position, the present data sug-gested that the reliability-validity emphasis increased success-seeking behaviorat the expense of consistency-seeking behavior. An alternate explanation ofthe differences between Ward and Sandvold's and Aronson and Carlsmith'sfindings is offered.

Aronson and Carlsmith (1962) performed anexperiment, based on dissonance theory, in whichthey demonstrated that subjects who were led toexpect that they would either succeed or fail ona given test altered their performance to conformto these expectancies. Ward and Sandvold(1963) contended that consistency-seeking be-havior on the part of the subjects in the Aronsonand Carlsmith study may be interpreted as aresponse to demand characteristics (Orne, 1962)rather than a mechanism of dissonance reduction,inasmuch as these authors emphasized to theirsubjects the reliability and validity of the test.Ward and Sandvold performed a partial replica-tion of the study in which experimenter demandswere excluded by eliminating that portion ofAronson and Carlsmith's introduction to thesubjects which stressed reliability and validity.Subjects in the Ward and Sandvold study altered

their performance in the direction of achievinggreater success, regardless of their expectancy.

It is considered that though these findings aresuggestive of a demand-characteristic bias inthe Aronson and Carlsmith study, more con-clusive support for Ward and Sandvold's inter-pretation requires a replication in which it isdemonstrated that consistency-seeking behavioris obtained with reliability and validity emphasisincluded and success-seeking behavior is obtainedwith this emphasis removed. The need for thistype of replication, which was attempted in thepresent study, is particularly salient in light ofthe fact that the paradigm used by Ward andSandvold differed from Aronson and Carlsmith'sin a number of aspects other than those consid-ered relevant to the demand-characteristicsinterpretation.