St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1947-02-07
Survey Reveals
Catholics Most
Race Prejudiced
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sarily make the victim more toll
Grant Of other members Of min
GRITTY groups. For example, the
more the Jew tends to feel vic
timized the greater is the ten
dency for him TO feel hostility
toward his own people as well as
toward Negroes. II is significant
that on the whole Jews are less
prejudiced against Negroes than
any other section of the white
population. The authors also in
vestigated the relations between
prejudice and early parental
training, education and sex.
On the basis of the students
replies, the study divided them into
approximately equal groups, one
more prejudiced and the other less
prejudiced. The women students
proved to be less prejudiced than
the men with 81 per cent less
prejudiced students at Radcliffe,
exclusively female students, as COM
pared with 81 per cent less pref
udiced students at Harvard, ex-
clusively male students, and "a per
cent at Dartmouth, also exclusively
male.
The study showed that children
we're born without any prejudices
but gradually acquired those of
their parents. Each of the students
was asked to report the extent to
which he thought his attitude to-
ward minority groups had been in
huenced by his parents. The table
below shows the results:
Taken over parents attitudes 1870
Taken them over in a modified
way ....-.- ........---.-... ......-...... 5l,s
Reacted against them .. g.,
Not been Influenced by them 25cl
TOTAL 1907
Thus So per cent of our stu
dents" DIR. Cook declared, "ac-
knOwledged that their attitudes
toward minority groups reflect
parents views in some degree.
Six per cent have reacted against
these views, and 25 per cent claim
to have been uninhuenced by
them.
THE answers Of this last group,
however, are highly suspect. So
many studies have demonstrated
the deep and lasting effect of par
entail attitudes on those of their
children that it is scarcely con
ceivabIe the attitudes of these par
ticular individuals were not in
fuenced by the parental model. 1t
is more likely the influence was
there hut not recognized.
The curious fact is that these
subjects who do not admit such
influence are precisely the sub
jects whose attitudes are most
prejudiced. SiXty-One per cent of
them fall into the more preiu-
diced half of the general distri-
button. and 80 into the less pref
udiced half.
This failure to understand the
influences that shape his present
attitudes are fundamental char
acteristics of the bigot.
Least Preiudiced
Least preiudiced are the
small number of students who
have reacted against their par
ents' views and rejected the par
entail attitudes. They seem to
develop a liberal, equalitarian
attitude" DIR. Cook concluded.
The educational level Of the par
ents bears an appreciate relation
to the prejudices of the students;
the more educated the parent, the
more free his child is from preju-
dice. Sixty per cent of the students
with both parents college gradu-
ates fell into the less prejudiced
category; SO per cent of those
with one parent college gradu-
ate, were less prejudiced while only
Al per cent of the students whose
parents were not college gradu-
ates were in this category.