SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYGROUP (WEDNESDAY)

CHAN PIN QI 0314676DANAR JOVIAN ADITYA VADYA PUTRA 0314575

CHIA SUE YI 0315334 JOHNSON CHAN 0314527

SEAN CHUA JIU XIN 0314025

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL, BUILT & ENVIRONMENTAPRIL INTAKE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The members of the team would like to express their deepest appreciation to all those who provided us the possibility to complete this report. A special gratitude we give to our lecturer, Ms. Chia Yee Pang,

whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and encouragement, helped us to coordinate our project especially in writing this report.

Special thanks to the LRT security for the approval to take the video in the train to conduct our research. Last but not the least, many thanks for the people who had participated in our research. We couldn’t do it if it

weren’t them.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………………………………..…2

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………4

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...5

METHOD………………………………………………………………………………..6 - 7

RESULTS………………………………………………………………………………..8 - 14

DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………………..15 - 17

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………..18 - 19

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………...20 - 21

ABSTRACT

As Malaysia’s population becomes increasingly more diverse ethnically and culturally, the opportunities for individuals of differing racial

backgrounds and ethnic groups to mix interracially when engaging in romantic relationships increases as well. The purpose of this study was

to compare people’s perceptions of couples engaged in interracial romantic relationships compared to college students’ perceptions of

couples engaged in romantic relations with individuals of the same racial heritage. The research was conducted in Taylor’s University Lakeside

Campus as well on the LRT train, using the students of Taylor’s University and the commuters of LRT. The purpose of this research is to make a comparative examination of attitudes and perceptions concerning

interracial dating. In total, 100 students completed the Interracial Relationship Questionnaire, an instrument designed to assess attitudes toward interracial dating. Results indicate that most of the participants are at the age of 19-24. Most of the Chinese, Indians and other races, they have an open minded thinking about interracial relationships as

well as their parents. For the Malays, most of them don’t mind having a relationship with other races, but the problem comes with their parents

as three out of five of them would not agree with interracial relationship.

INTRODUCTION

Malaysia is a melting pot of cultures and our society is very fluid. So interracial relationships are not uncommon, yet we still possess a somewhat contemptuous attitude towards it. Some of the people in Malaysia that are having an interracial relationship often experience intense struggles and obstacles throughout their relationship simply because one side of the family or the other disagrees with the idea of having a different race for a partner.

Malaysia, historically, has been a nation of immigrants, most of them are from India and China. They were brought here by the British during Britain's colonization as a workforce/labour. Most of the Indians they work on a rubber tapping industry where as the Chinese they work in the mining industry. Of course, the mining industry earns more revenue that the rubber tapping industry, which in consequence in a better standard of living for the Chinese than the Indians.

But as the year goes by, many people in Malaysia regardless of what their race are starting to earn more money. This results in a growing parental openness to diverse populations came increased opportunities for their children socially to interact with people of racial and ethnic backgrounds beyond their own.

Openness to interracial relationships varies among generations. Generally, the older generations have been more opposed to interracial relationship while the younger generations have tended to view interracial relationship as a normal thing.

In this study, we explore what are other people's perception on other races than their own. We also were interested in knowing what is the student's view in interracial relationship as well as the openness of their parents of having a relationship with another race other than their own.

METHOD

ParticipantsOne hundred participants with different ages enrolled in this Psychology course at private institution in Petaling Jaya (Taylor University). We administered a self-report survey instrument created by the authors to record the students’ and their opinion on interracially relationships. Questionnaires with participant’s completed responses were used for the study. One hundred sets were usable for the research study. The response rate was 99%. Reason that every questionnaires were useable in this survey. As a result, 57 male and 43 female participants were part of the completed study.

ProcedureParticipants were given the questionnaires to complete during recess. To ensure the privacy, participants did not need to write their name on survey forms. After collecting the completed questionnaires from the participants, we started to calculate the numbers of questionnaires that we had collected. Then, we started to categorize the questionnaires into genders and races to let us examined the result easily. We analyzed and collected data from the questionnaires. The data and results were recorded in the table that we made for our report. Besides, we had our own survey based on this topic by observing and recording the behavior of passengers (different races and genders) in LRT. Every actions of the passengers were recorded. Moreover, we watched the videos that we recorded and chose some of them which were related to our survey out.

DesignHypothesis : Attractiveness depends on similarity and proximity

Independent variable : Gender and races

Dependent variable : Rate of attractiveness

MaterialExaminers had prepared 100 questionnaires for participants. The general questionnaire constructs for every participant were identical. Beyond basic demographic information, all were asked to provide the opinions and acceptance on different genders and races. They needed to answer every question sincerely to ensure the result collected were accurate and easy to analyze. The racial categories included Malay, Chinese, Indian and others. Besides, they would answer what kind of partner from different races which country they prefer to become their partner. Furthermore, they were required to answer the questions on acceptance between different genders and races.

Besides, the examiners used a lot of technical equipment to carry out the experiment in LRT. DSLR camera, digital camera and camera tripod were used in the experiment. Some of the examiners used cameras to record the behavior of the passengers, while some of them observed the action passengers and took notes. The data were collected and arranged after the experiment.

ResultA survey of similarity and proximity happened during Interracial Relation between a man and woman cohabitation, sexual relations, marriage, or interbreeding involving persons of different races. However, this was also a survey based on people choices preferred partners e.g. country, races, religion, skin color.

Below showed the races member of Taylor’s involved in the survey.

Race Total AmountChinese 73

Malay 8

Indian 5

Others 6

Number of different gender involved.

5140

Figures

Age

≤18

19-24

25-29

35-39

≥40

Figure 1. Average age of participants involved in this survey is teenagers between 19-24 years old.

status

single

in relationship

married

other

Figure 2. Status of participants involved in this survey.

Figure 3. Percentage of races in participants’ friends

White

Yellow

Light Brown

Dark Brown

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

OthersIndianMalayChinese

Figure 4. Preference of skin color by the participants

Chinese Malay Indian Other0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

South East AsiaAsiaEuropeNorth AmericaSouth AmeicaOthers

Figure 5. Preference of country in choosing partner

Questions Chinese Malay Indian Others

Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

Would you choose other races as partner 44 29 4 1 6 2 6 0

Do the parents agree with interracial relationship? 51 22 2 3 7 1 5 1

Do you feel comfort with other races? 59 14 3 2 8 0 6 0

Figure 6.

Discussion The research findings confirmed the hypothesis is accepted which the attractiveness depends on similarity, proximity and familiarity. Items that are similar to each other tend to be grouped together. It happened to people as well. A basic requirement for forming a relationship is similarity, proximity and familiarity. For example, those superstars in the TV shows will not possible building up relationship with us. There’s no chance for us to be close enough with them (no proximity), therefore they will still remain as our idol, not friends. Having more chances to interact with each other will build up familiarity and lead to friendship or intimate relationship according to the mere exposure effect (Robert B. Zajonc, 1968) which states that the more we are exposed to a stimulus, whether it is a sound, picture or person, the more positively we will rate that stimulus. Therefore people will choose the one who are similar, familiar and close to them in building up relationship.

The experiment carried out in the LRT confirmed the hypothesis is accepted. Passengers who were entering the LRT tended to choose the seats beside the people who similar to them such as same races and same gender. A hidden attraction will be formed between those people who were similar to each other, as they felt more secure while sitting with the same gender or same race. Among 109 participants taken part in the survey, 60% of the participants were found to choose seats near the people who share similarity, proximity and familiarity. Passengers who are different gender would hesitate a while whether wants to sit with a guy or not. The results showed majority of them will choose to sit with same gender or sit with the other gender then move to other seats when empty seats are available. However, due to the crowd in the LRT, some

people would not bother whom to sit with just to want a seat and get some rest. There’s another reason why the people do not want to sit with people beside as they were letting seats for those who need such as old ladies and small kids. However, there’s small portion of people who did not care about the similarity, familiarity and proximity that sit with other gender or races but only 40% of them.

A survey of people point of view towards other races is taken out among members in Taylor’s. The finding showed the majority of students have friends of same races except the foreigners. Due to the incident happened 13of May, the locals lost confidence in other races and leads to the separation of each other. Since they had been hurt by each other before, it’s hard to recover the scars. Therefore, friends of the locals’ majority are same race. However, for foreigners, they made friends with same races people and also different races people equally. One of the reasons may because they had already used to live with the people from other races as they stayed abroad.

The survey also involved which country’s people tended to attract people most. A result showed Asian country tends to attract most of the participants, as most of our participants were Chinese. Chinese attracted by Asian countries’ people. The hypothesis is accepted. For races beside from Chinese, most Malay were attracted by the people from South East Asia and Asian. Malay seldom chose Europe and other country as their ideal partner’s country. This may be caused by the conflict happened between the Christian and the Islam. Prejudice involved in this survey.

People also tended to be attracted by those who had the same color skin with them.

The findings showed the Chinese mostly prefer their partner to have yellow skin color. Their second choice would be white color for their partner’s ideal skin color. The Malay, Indian and the foreigners would choose skin color skin of light brown as same as their own skin color. Dark brown skin color seemed to be looked down by the majority of the participants as only small portion of them chose this. This may be caused by the America Slaves rule which setting the Blacks as the lower standard citizens.

According to the Steven Duck (1992) theory, he explained the tenderness of people towards similarity, proximity and familiarity was because of seeing the world in the same way as someone else make it easier to interact with them. Therefore, everyone in the world contained a bit of racism deep inside the heart. The hypothesis was accepted.

Light Brown: Malay, foreigner, Indian

Yellow : Chinese

White : Chinese

The survey above showed that people of certain skin color tend to find those who are from same color.

Appendix

Appendix 1.a

Age Amount of Participant< 18 8

19 - 24 7725 - 29 429 - 34 035 - 39 1

> 40 2100

Appendix 1.b

Gender Amount of ParticipantMale 57

Female 43100

Appendix 1.c

Status Amount of ParticipantSingle 68

In relationship 28Married 3Others 1

100

Appendix 1.d

Race Amount of ParticipantMalay 76

Chinese 10Indian 5Others 9

100

Appendix 2.a

RaceQuestion

Malay Chinese Indian OthersYes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

1. Would you choose other races as your partner?

4 1 46 30 8 2 9 0

2. Do the parents agree interracial relationship?

2 3 52 24 9 1 8 1

3. Do you feel comfort while people from others country?

3 2 62 14 10 0 9 0

Appendix 2.b

RaceCountry

Malay Chinese Indian Others

South East Asia 3 23 2 1Asia 3 43 2 5Europe 1 22 4 4North America 1 17 3 1South America 1 3 6 0Others: 0 5 1 3

Appendix 2.c

RaceSkin color

Malay Chinese Indian Others

White 1 28 3 2Yellow 1 46 2 3Light Brown 4 18 7 3Dark brown 1 2 0 0

Appendix 2.d

RacesFriend race

Malay Chinese Indian Others

95% same race 3 47 3 250% same race 1 25 4 325% same race 1 1 3 4

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