Racial Differences in Associative Style

Consideration of qualitative differences between Negro (N = 60) and white (N = 42) subjects' associative hierarchies based upon 53 target-words revealed that Negro associative hierarchies exhibited smaller proportions of unique associations (UA's) to opposites, adjectives, and both concrete and abstract nouns. Negro subjects gave the highest percentage of UA's to descriptive adjectives, whereas white subjects gave the most UA's to concrete and abstract nouns. Regarding primary and secondary associations, Negroes and whites gave identical primary associations to opposite-evoking words (N = 14) but differed on 50% of the secondary associations to these same words. For the 39 words that were not so tightly associatively interconnected, the races differed on 50% of the primary and 74% of the secondary associations given. When the races differed, Negroes exhibited a tendency to give either opposites or syntagmatic responses as primary and secondary associations. These data together with those of Belcher and Campbell (1968) suggest that the developmental word association model elaborated upon by Entwhistle (1966) may meaningfully apply to the study of such racial differences. Specifically, it is suggested that Negro word associations are indicative of a general developmental lag or deficiency in comparison to whites, and further that remedial programmes designed to eradicate differences between the races with respect to word association and related cognitive abilities be implemented within the public school system.