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Ethnic Stereotypes: The Role ofLanguageR. C. Gardner a , D. M. Kirby a , R. Y. Pablo a &Emma Santos Castillo aa University of Western Ontario and PhilippineNormal CollegePublished online: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: R. C. Gardner , D. M. Kirby , R. Y. Pablo & Emma Santos Castillo(1975) Ethnic Stereotypes: The Role of Language, The Journal of Social Psychology,96:1, 3-9, DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1975.9923255

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 1975, 96, 3-9.

ETHNIC STEREOTYPES: THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE*'

University o f Western Ontario and Philippine Normal College

R. C. GARDNER, D. M. KIRBY, R. Y. PABLO, AND EMMA SANTOS CASTILLO

SUMMARY An investigation was conducted to determine whether the language of

testing exerts an influence in cross-cultural work among bilingual Ss con- cerning ethnic stereotypes and the generality of stereotyping. The investi- gation constituted a replication in the Tagalog language of a study initially conducted in English. The results indicated that the language of testing did not appreciably affect the product of stereotyping, the stereotypes themselves, but it did affect at least one aspect of the process of stereotyping, its generality across ingroup and outgroup concepts. Such results suggest that investigators engaged in cross-cultural research should consider very carefully the language of testing.

A. INTRODUCTION

One problem facing the social scientist conducting cross-cultural research is that of the language to be employed in the investigation. In many countries, a sufficient number of people often speak English as a second language to tempt the English speaking investigator to conduct his testing in English. I t seems possible, however, that such a research strategy could have unforeseen implications. Results based on such research could conceivably be due to the effects of the weaker (second) language rather than to other psychological mechanisms postulated by the experimenter.

One area of social psychology in which considerable research has been conducted in other cultures is that concerned with ethnic stereotypes-i.e., consensual beliefs that one group has about other groups (1). The language employed in such research, however, often has been English (see for example, ' 9 6 J ' J '1.

* Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on June 27 , 1974, and given special consideration in accordance with our policy for cross-cultural research. Copyright, 1975, by The Journal Press.

1 This research was supported in part by the Canada Council for research on the project, Bicultural Communication: The Significance of Stereotypes ; and was conducted while the senior author was a Ford Foundation Consultant at the Philippine Normal College, Manila.

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Another investigation ( 2 ) using English as the language of testing was conducted in the Philippines employing Tagalog subjects. In this research, one group of subjects rated the concepts, Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Filipinos, Germans, Japanese, Jews, Russians, and Spaniards along 45 stereo- type differential scales, while a second group used the Katz and Braly ( 3 ) adjective selection procedure to characterize the same ethnic groups. The stereotypes obtained with the two procedures were highly similar, especially for ethnic group concepts for which consensus was substantial. In the same study, individual difference measures were computed, from responses on the stereotype differential, to determine whether subjats tended to adopt the con- sensually defined stereotype about each ethnic group presented. The correla- tions among these scores suggested that the tendency to stereotype outgroups (i.e., non Filipinos) was a generalized phenomenon independent of the ten- dency to stereotype the ingroup. That is, subjects who adopted the con- sensually defined stereotype about one outgroup did so about all outgroups, but this tendency was independent of their willingness to adopt the con- sensually defined stereotype about their national group, Filipinos.

The results of that study led to the present investigation. I t seems possible that somewhat different stereotypes might have been obtained if the Tagalog language had been employed. This possibility is strengthened by data ob- tained in another investigation ( 7 ) which suggested that when Tagalog sub- jects rated ethnic group concepts in Tagalog, as opposed to English, their responses tended to be more evaluative: outgroups were rated less favorably and ingroups more favorably in Tagalog than in English. That study, however, was concerned mostly with regional groups rather than international ones; hence it is not clear whether the pattern would emerge with stereotypes about international groups.

The purpose of the present investigation was to replicate the Gardner et al. study ( 2 ) but by using Tagalog rather than English as the language of testing. This replication allows for a comparison of the stereotypes obtained from two different samples using a common methodology but different lan- guages. I t also permits a comparison of one aspect of the process of stereo- typing: viz., the generality phenomenon which was demonstrated in the original study ( 2 ) .

B. METHOD 1. Subjects

Subjects (Ss) for this study were 88 undergraduate and graduate educa- tion students a t the Philippine Normal College, Manila, Republic of the

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R. C. GARDNER ET AL. 5

Philippines. All of the Ss identified themselves as Tagalogs, a major language group in the Philippines.

2 . Materials

Ss were presented with a questionnaire which included nine ethnic group labels, Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Filipinos, Germans, Japanese, Jews, Russians, and Spaniards, each of which was followed by 45 stereotype differ- ential scales. The ethnic group labels, the scales and the instructions employed in the original study ( 2 ) were presented in Tagalog, the native language of the Ss. To ensure that translated equivalents were used, this translated form was retranslated into English by a second translator who had not seen the original questionnaire. Where differences existed, the two individuals were consulted to decide on the best Tagalog equivalent of the original scale.2

The order of presentation of the ethnic group concepts and the order and direction of the stereotype differential scales were randomly varied.

3 . Procedure

Ss were tested in groups within their classrooms. Testing time required ap- proximately one hour. I t should be noted that this testing was done at the same time as that of the original study ( 2 ) , though the Ss were different.

C. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The stereotypes about each ethnic concept are defined in terms of those 10 attributes for which agreement or consensus is greatest. Such consensus is indexed through the stereotype differential ratings by means of the t statistic, N(Z-p)/S, which measures the extent to which ratings on any particular scale are polarized towards one of the end points. Where the mean (X) departs significantly from a neutral rating (p) of 4, it can be concluded that Ss perceive that attribute as being associated with the group in question. Rather, however, than focusing on all attributes for which the ratings are significantly polarized, emphasis is placed only on the 10 attributes with the greatest polarization assuming such polarization is significant.

I t would seem superfluous to present or discuss the content of the stereo- types derived in the present r e~ea rch .~ What is important is the degree of similarity between the stereotypes obtained in this study and those presented

Copies of the Tagalog words used in the stereotype differential scales, as well as

3 The English translations of the 10 words contained in the stereotypes of each group their translated equivalents, are available from the senior investigator.

are available from the senior investigator.

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in the original investigation ( 2 ) . For four of the ethnic groups, five of the attributes were common, and in five instances, six were common to the stereotypes obtained in the original study. Also, the “general images” of the stereotypes in each language are highly similar, regardless of the specific attributes included in the stereotype. Such agreement suggests that in terms of the product of the stereotype assessment task, the language of testing does not have a considerable influence.

A more precise index of the degree of similarity of the ratings made in Tagalog and the ratings made in English is provided by the correlation be- tween the t values, for each ethnic group concept, of the scales in each lan- guage. Correlations between these t values were 28, 3 3 , 3 2 , 38, 3 6 , .79, .74, .86, and .86 ( p < .01 in each case) for the ethnic group concepts Ameri- cans, Canadians, Chinese, Filipinos, Germans, Japanese, Jews, Russians, and Spaniards respectively. These results demonstrate, a t the group level, a con- siderable degree of similarity between the responses made in Tagalog and those made in English, indicating that the language of testing does not appreciably influence the relative polarity of the attributes for each ethnic group.

Although, when rating ethnic group concepts in each of two languages, Ss might agree upon those attributes which are deemed most characteristic of the groups concerned, and similarly correlations of t values for each ethnic group concept across the languages employed might be highly significant, it is quite possible that the relative consensus involved in trait attribution toward the concepts may vary as a function of the language of testing. That is, it is possible that in one language the relative consensus in the stereotypes of the groups may be different from that in the other language. In order to test this possibility, the absolute t values associated with the 10 attributes in the stereotype about each concept were summed in each language, and the ethnic group concepts were ranked in terms of this consensus. A Spear- man rank order correlation of .75 ( p < .05) was obtained between the orders of the concepts in the two languages suggesting that the relative degree of consensus involved in the traits stereotypically assigned to the groups in the two languages was comparable.

Individual difference measures of the tendency for Ss to adopt the con- sensually defined stereotype about each ethnic group concept were derived in a manner analogous to that employed in the original investigation ( 2 ) . This procedure involves the addition, for each S, of his responses on the 10 scales which were used in the definition of the stereotype of each ethnic group. Since the scales are reflected where necessary, individual difference scores

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of the tendency to adopt the consensually defined stereotype about any par- ticular ethnic group may take values from 10 to 70, with a high score re- flecting a tendency on the part of the individual to perceive the ethnic group in a manner which conforms to the stereotype. Table 1 presents the correla- tions among the individual difference measures obtained in the Gardner et al. ( 2 ) study (upper diagonal) and those obtained in the present investigation (lower diagonal).

The correlations obtained in the present investigation tend to be higher than the correlations obtained in the previous one. An examination of Table I reveals that of the 36 correlations computed upon the data from each sample, 2 7 of the correlations from the present data (Tagalog language) are higher than the corresponding correlations (English language) obtained by Gardner et at. ( 2 ) . Furthermore all correlations in the matrix of the present study are significant ( p < .05). These findings suggest that Ss were more consistent in their reactions to the ethnic group concepts on a stereotyping dimension: Ss who tended to adopt the stereotype of one group tended to adopt it of all, while Ss who did not subscribe to the stereotype of one group tended not to stereotype all groups. In the original study a similar pattern emerged among the outgroup labels though it was not so pronounced. Furthermore, in the original study, the tendency to stereotype ingroups was generally independent of the tendency to stereotype outgroups, while in the present investigation the generality of stereotyping encompasses both ingroups and outgroups. Since the stereotypes in both investigations are highly similar, it seems reasonable to conclude that this difference in the generality of stereotyping is due to the difference in the language of testing.

The present investigation does not provide any means for determining the reasons for the differences in the generality of stereotyping. Data obtained in a study by Kirby and Gardner (4), however, support the conclusion that the present results are more typical, and the use of English in the previous investigation resulted in irregular results. In the Kirby and Gardner study (4), Canadian students were tested in English, and results indicated that the generality of stereotyping encompassed both ingroups and outgroups. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude from that study and the present one that stereotyping is a generalized phenomenon including both ingroup and outgroup labels.

REFERENCES 1. GARDNER, R. C., RODENSKY, R. L., & KIRBY, D. M. Ethnic stereotypes: A critical

review. Research Bulletin No. 157, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1970.

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2 . GARDNER, R. C., KIRBY, D. M., GOROSPE, F. H., & VILLA-, A. C. Ethnic stereotypes: An alternative assessment technique, the stereotype differential. J. SOC. Psychol., 1972, 87, 259-267.

KATZ, D., & BRALY, K. W. Racial stereotypes of 100 college students. J. Abn. SOL.

KIRBY, D. M., & GARDNER, R. C. Ethnic stereotypes: A study of personality correlates of consensual beliefs and unjustified generalizations. Mimeo, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1973.

5 . NIEMELA, P., HONKA-HOLLILA, S., & JARVIKOSKI, A. A study in intergroup perception stereotype. J. Peace Res., 1969, 6, 57-64.

6. SINHA, A. K. P., & UPADHYAY, 0. P. Stereotypes of male and female university students in India toward different ethnic groups. J. SOL. Psychol., 1960, 51, 9.3-102.

7. TAYLOR, D. M., DAGOT, E. P., 81 GARDNER, R. C. The use of the semantic differential in cross-cultural research. Philippine J . Psychol., 1969, 2, 43-5 1.

8. VINACKE, W. E. Explorations in the dynamic processes of stereotyping. J . SOC. Psvchol.. 1956. 43. 105-132.

3.

4. Psychol., 1933, 28, 280-290.

, I

9. ZAIDI, S. M. H. National stereotypes of university students in Karachi. J . SOL. Psychol., 1964, 63, 73-85.

Department of Psychology University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N 6 A 3 K 7 , Canada

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