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Mutual Perceptions of Racial Images: White, Black, and Japanese Americans 1
Author(s) -
Kurokawa Minako
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1971.tb00687.x
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , psychology , pleasure , adjective , perception , social psychology , adjective check list , race (biology) , racial group , developmental psychology , gender studies , sociology , personality , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , neuroscience , philosophy , noun , gene
Mutual and self‐perceptions of the racial images of white, blacks, and the Japanese Americans were studied among adults, college students, and school children in California. For adults and college students, Katz and Braly's adjective list was used, in which subjects were asked to choose 5 traits out of 84 to describe each racial group. Children were instructed to describe racial images in their own words. The hypothesis that whites occupying the dominant position are endowed with positive traits and minority groups with negative traits was only partially supported. Minority acceptance of the negative image ascribed by the dominant group, which was generally true in the 1930 Katz and Braly work, did not hold in this study. Whites were portrayed as materialistic and pleasure loving; blacks as musical, aggressive, and straightforward; and the Japanese as industrious, ambitious, loyal to family, and quiet.