A Brief Report on the Methodology of Stereotype Research

This study investigated the characteristics of the "stereotype check list," the instrument typically employed in the study of intergroup stereotypes. A specimen group of undergraduates was tested with two forms of a questionnaire. One form contained a list of 84 adjectives taken from the original Katz-Braly check list; the other was open-ended. Each form employed as targets: Turks, Russians, Negroes, Japanese, Alorese, Jews, and Americans. Half the students were given the check list; half, the open-ended format. Two hypotheses were tested and confirmed: (1) check list respondents assigned more traits and showed greater consensus than those responding to the open-ended format; (2) the two formats produced different listings of traits. The findings displayed the major deficiencies of inadequate answer formats: their failure to elicit new answer options and their tendency to elicit "meaningless" answers. This research strongly suggests that check list studies may have contributed to the prejudice literature biased accounts of the distribution, acceptance, and content of intergroup stereotypes. T hlis is the third in a series of studies concerned with the metlhodological problems of prejudice research' The intent of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the "stereotype check list," the instrument most frequently employed in the study of intergroup stereotypes. The stereotype check list was introduced by Katz and Braly in 1933.2 They presented to 100 Princeton University students a list of 84 adjectives or traits with instructions that these traits be assigned to ten specified groups. The list of 84 traits was compiled from the "free answers" of 25 college students plus "some additions" by the authors-in short, on the basis of a small, and for its time, adequate pretest. In general, it was found that the stereotypes of the specified groups were well crystallized, i.e., there was a high degree of consensus in the assignment of particular traits to particular groups. There would be, perhaps, little reason for concern with the Katz and Braly check list and study except for the fact that (1) it perennially appears as a citation or reprint in basic readers and textbooks in social psychology and, more importantly, (2) it has signaled a plethora of replications and follow-up studies from 1933 through 1962, the majority of which duplicated or only slightly modified the original stereotype check list.3 The results achieved *This research was supported initially by the Research Division, Psychiatric Institute and Hospital, Ohio State University, and Rinehart's participation was facilitated by a Public Health Service Fellowship (Number 18327) from the National Institute of Mental Health. This report was completed with the support of the Mental Health Study Center, NIMH. An earlier version of a part of this paper was presented by Rinehart to the Ohio Valley Sociological Society, East Lansing, Michigan, May, 1962. We are indebted to Professors Mark Lefton, Albert Schwartz and Hans Sebald for allowing their students to participate in the study, and to Mary Lou Bauer and Carol P. Ehrlich who assisted in the data analysis. tNow at the State University of Iowa. 1 Howard J. Ehrlich, "Stereotyping and Negro-Jewish Stereotypes," Social Forces, 41 (December 1962), pp. 171-176 and Howard J. Ehrlich, "Instrument Error and the Study of Prejudice," Social Forces, 43 (December 1964), pp. 197-206. 2 Daniel Katz and Kenneth W. Braly, "Racial Stereotypes of One Hundred College Students," Jornoal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28 (1933), pp. 280-290, reprinted in Eleanor E. Maccoby, Theodore M. Newcomb, and Eugene L. Hartley, Readintgs in Social Psychology (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1958). 3Anwar Ansari, "A Study of the Relation Between Group Stereotypes and Social Distance," This content downloaded from 157.55.39.225 on Wed, 14 Jun 2017 18:06:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms STEREOTYPE RESEARCH 565 have all been roughtly congruent and have consistently pointed to a higlh degree of consensus among respondents concerning the traits they choose to characterize particular groups. It is our contention that the findings generated by these studies have been incorporated into the prejudice literature resulting in somewhat unrealistic accounts of the distribution, acceptance, and content of racial, eth.nic, and national stereotypes. Such results, moreover, have been taken to mean that individuals can and do voice their prejudice in terms of a well-articulated vocabulary. 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