EFFECTS OF RACE OF EXPERIMENTER AND TEST VS. NEUTRAL INSTRUCTIONS ON EXPRESSION OF HOSTILITY IN NEGRO BOYS,
Abstract
An experiment tested whether suppression of hostile responses occurs when a white adult makes Negro students take an intelligence test. Negro male students at a segregated high school in the South were given a test of aggression disguised as a concept formation test. Two equivalent forms of the test were administered on successive days. On the first day it was given informally to all subjects by a Negro teacher. The following day the entire sample was divided into four groups, each of which was tested by either a white or a Negro adult stranger, with instructions that described the task as either an intelligence test or a research instrument. When neutral instructions were used on the second day, average change scores in both the white-tester a5d Negro-tester groups were about the same. But in the intelligence test condition, hostility scores increased over the previous day when the experimenter was a Negro, and they decreased when the experimenter was white. The interpretation is that both administrators instigated hostile impulses when they used test instructions. Students revealed their annoyance on the hostility questionnaire when the experimenter was Negro, but with a white tester the need to deny hostile feelings resulted in avoidance of aggressive word meanings. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1963
- Accession Number
- AD0421502
Entities
People
- Edgar G. Epps
- Irwin Katz
- James M. Robinson
- Patricia Waly
Organizations
- New York University