Use of a Black 'Culture Assimilator' to Increase Racial Understanding

Abstract

A programmed instruction approach to race-relations training in the U.S. Army involved the development of the technique (culture assimilator) and its field test. In the development phase, 65 black officers, 90 black enlisted men, 65 white officers, and 90 white enlisted men participated; in the field test, 84 white junior grade officers and 85 black junior grade officers participated. Results indicated: (a) the sample of problems used in the assimilator represents a set of events far more familiar to black officers than to white officers; (b) blacks obtain higher scores on the assimilator (indicative of greater knowledge of the black perspective on race relations in the Army) than whites; (c) significant evidence of learning of acculturative materials on the part of white officers was obtained; and (d) there was significant improvement on an independent test of intercultural understanding.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1978
Accession Number
ADA060560

Entities

People

  • Albert B. Miller
  • Dan Landis
  • Harry R. Day
  • James A. Thomas
  • Penny L. Mcgrew

Organizations

  • University City Science Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Central America
  • Contrast
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Field Tests
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Military Research
  • Minority Groups
  • New York
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Social Sciences
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Trainees
  • Training
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Organizational Psychology.