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Assessing White Racial Consciousness and Perceived Comfort with Black Individuals: A Preliminary Study
Author(s) -
CLANEY DAWN,
PARKER WOODROW M.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
journal of counseling and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.805
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1556-6676
pISSN - 0748-9633
DOI - 10.1002/j.1556-6676.1989.tb02114.x
Subject(s) - consciousness , white (mutation) , psychology , social psychology , racial differences , scale (ratio) , ethnic group , sociology , geography , biochemistry , chemistry , cartography , neuroscience , anthropology , gene
This research examined the relationship between White racial consciousness development and perceived comfort with Black individuals. Participants were 339 White undergraduate students from a large southeastern state university who were asked to complete a two‐part inventory: part one measuring White racial consciousness development (a five‐stage scale) and part two measuring perceived comfort in situations involving Black individuals. An eta coefficient was calculated, providing evidence for the existence of a strong curvilinear relationship between White racial consciousness and perceived comfort with Black individuals η =.23 at p<.0001. These findings suggest that Whites who are completely foreclosed (stage one) or who are well acquainted with Blacks (stage five) are more comfortable in situations with Blacks than Whites who had a moderate amount of contact with them (stages two, three, and four).