Evening star., 1932-06-26

you dislike certain people? Or why
they may dislike you?
This question came up recently
1 among the students at the Psyche
logical Laboratory of Colgate Uni
versity. The realization that among their
number were fellows looked up TO- but not
liked. others almost universally liked, and a
few heartily disliked, crystallized into re-
search which uncovered information of
ceptional value for every one, whether student
or professor, business or professional man,
executive subordinate.
One very telling point was established almost
at the outset The l30 men who took part in
the experiments were asked at given signal
10 begin writing down speedily possible
the initials of all persons they particularly
disliked. Half a minute later, this listing of
dislikes suddenly stopped
Many of the listeners had not been able to
think of more than one individual they dis
liked; others consumed the time at top speed
and still had not exhausted their pet human
aversions. Certain of them had noted 14
Later it developed-and here was the vital
thing-that those most given to minor hates
were themselves the most unpopular.
Also, the conviction was soon forced upon
us that the explanation of human likes and dis
likes for other humans lay almost wholly in
the actions of those other humans; first, in
actions that tend to strike at our pride and
opinion of ourselves. and second, in acts that
irk disturb and distress us
DUT, after all, these generalizations did not
- tell specifically why persons were disliked
Again, the students asked to write, each
to portray some person he regarded with re-
pugnance. with emphasis upon unliked traits
Of character, personality or conduct
Sisters, fraternity brothers, landlords and
1andladies. all between 16 and 60, were the
nf rffa
reason to hold before the experiments ended,
that some of the landlords" and 'landladies"
were parents of the writersD
Leaving out of consideration unnatural traits
which could have general significance in
this problem of likes and diSlikeS, SUCH for
example. as suffering, we found 81 traits, of
q type that could be considered universal, that
appeared with relative frequency.
Here then was a good starting point-here
were dislike traits" that had every chance of
being resented by great numbers of persons.
So again we had each of the men produce q
study of q second person disliked, but this time
confining the picture to the 81 aversion causes
cuiied from the previous articles.
Then we had them do a third study this
time OF person they liked very much-sweet-
hearts excluded IN all fairness-with relation
10 the same 81 traits. The group was deeply
interested, as you may imagine, and the whole
program carried out with rigorous and
scientific honesty.
THE next step a comparison of the 100
II well liked persons group with the 130
dlsliked subjects How many in the last, and
: how many in the first group possessed one or
more of the 81 dislike traits? In other
words, how true were these traits as universal
Indicators to whether an individual afflicted
with them was apt to be liked or disliked?
We found, by the use of appropriate mathe-
NAUTICAL deductions, that there were, on the
basis of this research, As traits in which the
chances are only l in TAO, at least that they
viii not prove. in any given case, sound and
inevitable of dislike. That is, you
possess one or more CT them the chances