Journal of Personality and Social Psycholoey

1965, Vol. 2, No. 6, 877-882

ETHNOCENTRISM AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE

PHYSICALLY DISABLED
MARK A. CHESLER *
University of Michigan
Much of the psychological literature in the field of intergroup relations generalizes from investigations conducted with a limited number of ethnic
minorities. This study attempts to derive a measure of general ethnocentrism,
and compares this with individuals' expressed attitudes toward a nonethnic
minority group, the physically disabled. Physically disabled persons are often
targets of interpersonal and intergroup prejudice and constitute a minority
outgroup rarely investigated. 4 dimensions of ethnocentrism: race, religion,
nationality, and socioeconomic class, as well as 13 specific groups, were the
targets of similar attitudinal expressions. Individuals who expressed ethnocentrism toward 1 specific minority group, or on 1 intergroup dimension, expressed similar attitudes toward other groups and dimensions. Moreover, individuals who manifested high ethnocentrism, or high rejection of outgroups,
also expressed rejection of the physically disabled.
The psychological disciplines have long been
interested in the role of personality factors in
ethnic prejudice and intergroup relations (e.g.,
Allport, 19S8; Doob & Sears, 1939; FrenkelBrunswik & Sanford, 1945; Harding, Kutner,
Proshansky, & Chein, 1954). Part of the evidence supporting the psychologists' emphasis on
personality variables has been the consistent discovery of positive and statistically significant
relationships between attitudes directed toward
one specific minority group, and attitudes expressed toward various other minorities (Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 19SO;
Lindzey & Rogolsky, 19SO). This phenomenon
suggests that the source of prejudice lies more
within the organism than in external and objective conditions, and that attitudes toward various
minority groups tend to be organized into a coherent pattern and then expressed in a mutually
supportive and consistent manner. The purpose
of this study is to explore some of these contentions by assessing individuals' attitudes toward
a variety of ethnic, as well as nonethnic, minority groups.
Several contemporary theorists suggest that
beliefs, attitudes, and behavior tend to be integrated in meaningful and sensible ways (Heider,
1958; Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955), and serve
a useful function in aiding the organism to pursue and attain certain goals (Katz, 1960; Peak,
1960). Attitudes toward ethnic groups may be
1
This research was carried out while the author
was a Research Assistant at the Human Resources
Foundation, Albertson, New York, and a graduate
student, at Hofstra University. Appreciation is extended to H. E. Yuker and J. R. Block for their
advice and assistance.

treated in much the same manner as other clusters of attitudes. Allport and Kramer (1946), for
instance, suggest that a person's prejudices are
deeply ingrained in his personal philosophy, are
reflections of a broader system of belief, and are
integrated into the very fabric of his personality.
More specifically, Sullivan and Adelson (1954)
and Rose (1951) observe that intolerance toward
one minority group is usually accompanied by
intolerance towards other minority groups.
Frenkel-Brunswik and Sanford (1945) report
a correlation of +.75 between anti-Semitic sentiment and the rejection of other minority groups.
These findings were later supported by the more
extensive research enterprise conducted by
Adorno and his colleagues (1950). In the latter
study, anti-Semitic sentiment, anti-Negro sentiment, patriotism or nationalism, and general
attitudes toward minorities yielded intercorrelations ranging from +.74 to +.83. These findings
led the authors to state that there was evidence
for the "generality of the ethnocentric approach
to group relations [p. 122]." Campbell and McCandless (1951) conclude, from a correlational
analysis of the subtests of the California E Scale
and several other personality and attitude tests,
that there is "a general factor among most if not
all attitudes toward other ethnic groups [p. 90]."
The ethnic groups so consideredJews, Mexicans, Negroes, English, Japaneseall elicited
attitudes that were significantly positively correlated. Both Bray (1950), utilizing the Levinson-Sanford Anti-Semitism Scale and the Likert
Anti-Negro Scale, and Prothro (1952), using the
Grice-Remmcrs generalized attitude scale, report
significant positive correlations between the expression of anti-Semitic sentiment and anti-Negro

877

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BRIEF ARTICLES

sentiment. Bettelheim and Janowitz (1950) also

find a pattern of similarity between the correlates of anti-Semitic and anti-Negro attitudes.
The latter authors conclude that not only were
personality factors that are related to the expression of one attitude related to the expression
of the other, but personality characteristics unrelated to one of these attitudes are also unrelated to the other. Finally, Rokeach (1960) corroborates these conclusions and further states
that "rejection of the Negro is but a special case
of a wider rejection of all people, 'regardless of
race, creed, or color' [p. 145]." These findings
are consistently upheld in the literature, except
in a few studies where strong social norms and
standards modify the relationship. Prothro and
Pettigrew (1959), for instance, report finding
Southerners anti-Negro, but not necessarily antiSemitic or ethnocentric in general. In these
Southern studies, anti-Negro sentiment can be
seen more as a function of sociocultural influences than personality factors. Despite these
influences, psychological reports clearly suggest
that personality differences with regard to ethnocentrism exist in all situations. In general, the
ethnocentric individual tends to hold his own
ethnic group in high esteem, and to reject most
other groups.
In addition to the problem of generalizing to
a wide range of specific ethnic minority groups,
a well-developed theory of intergroup relations
must handle problems of ingroup-outgroup relations that are not primarily ethnic in character.
Therefore, a principal concern here is the evaluation of attitudes toward identifiable individuals
who are members of outgroups other than ethnic
outgroups.
Prejudice and the Physically Handicapped
One such outgroup consists of physically handicapped persons who are often subject to the same
intolerant behavior as are members of ethnic
minorities. However, the physically handicapped
are not generally considered as an outgroup, and
comparatively little research has been done
treating them as such. Wright (1960), in her
summary of the psychological aspects and effects
of physical disability, remarks that disabled
persons have much in common with members of
other minority groups. Barker's (1948) early
work in this area is even more explicit: "the
physically disabled person is in a position not
unlike that of the Negro, the Jew, and other
under-privileged racial and religious minorities;
he is a member of an under-privileged minority
[p. 31]." Barker and his colleagues (Barker,
Wright, Meyerson, & Gonich, 1953) further re-

port that persons with various disabilities were

unable to find adequate employment and were
afforded an inferior legal status and rights as a
result of "irrational prejudice." Thus it seems
that the handicapped person experiences some of
the same social rejection and ostracism that is
experienced by members of ethnic minority
groups.
Recent empirical studies on attitudes toward
the disabled support these general contentions.
Handel (1960) studied attitudes toward blind
persons and concluded that common stereotypes
of the blind person usually place him in an inferior social role. The author further reflects on
the tone of his own analysis and remarks that
this report "sounded as though we were considering a problem of race relations instead of disability [p. 363]." A similar study was undertaken by Himes (1960), who adapted the Bogardus social distance scale for use with blind
students and collegiate normals (Bogardus, 1927).
His findings indicate that the more intimate the
proposed relationship with a blind person, the
more clearly and intensely is he rejected by the
physically normal. What Bogardus finds for ethnic outgroups Himes finds with regard to blind
persons.
Cowen, Underberg, and Verrillo (1958) present
further evidence for a common factor in attitudes toward both ethnic and disability groups.
Starting with their locally developed scale measuring attitudes towards blindness, Cowen and his
colleagues tested several groups of individuals
with a series of items selected from the California E Scale and F Scale. They find that negative attitudes toward the blind correlate positively
with negative attitudes toward Negroes, toward
other minority groups, and with positive authoritarian attitudes. Attitudes toward religious and
racial minorities are seen to have determinants
similar to those of attitudes toward the blind.
These studies (Cowen et al., 1958; Handel,
1960; Himes, 1960) support the view that attitudes expressed toward physically disabled individuals have much in common with attitudes expressed toward ethnic minorities. Some of the
studies have compared several disability groups,
or generalized attitudes toward the disabled, with
a single ethnic minority sentiment. Others have
compared attitudes toward single disability
groups with generalized ethnic group attitudes.
Those using a single disability group suffer from
the same lack of generalizability noted earlier
with regard to ethnic groups. Himes himself suggests that "each physical disabilitydeafness
and crippleness as well as blindness-is significantly, though differently, stereotyped [p. 55]."

BRIEF ARTICLES
Thus, the use of attitudes toward the blind as
evidence for a common expression of attitudes
toward all disabled groups needs to be further
substantiated.
The literature indicates that attitudes toward
ethnic minorities may be general in character
and should be expressed in a relatively common
fashion towards a variety of outgroups. Hypothesis 1, therefore, states that: Individuals who exhibit ethnocentric attitudes toward one particular minority group, will express similar attitudes
toward a variety of other outgroupsreligious,
racial, socioeconomic, or nationality groups.
The literature further suggests that physically
disabled persons represent a minority group, an
outgroup, in the American culture. If ethnocentrism is general in character, the outgroup of
physically disabled persons should be subject to
the same interpersonal rejection and negative
sentiment as other, ethnically determined, outgroups. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 states that:
Individuals who express ethnocentric attitudes
toward various outgroups will express similar
attitudes toward physically disabled persons.
METHOD
The Intergroup Relations Scale (IRS) was developed by the author as a measure of an individual's
attitudes toward a variety of minority groups. It is
a Likert-type scale consisting of 34 items. The subject indicates the degree of his agreement or disagreement with each statement on a 6-point scale.
The score for the entire scale, or for each of four
subscales, indicates the degree of acceptance or
rejection of minority groups.
The items in the IRS are slight modifications of
statements selected from the Levinson-Sanford AntiSemitism scale (Levinson & Sanford, 1944) and the
Negro and Minority subscales of the California
Ethnocentrism Scale (Adorno et al., 1950). Three
judges, research psychologists, selected the items
used in the IRS from the total of 76 items available
from these original sources. The criteria for selection
included specification that the items: were worded
so as to be amenable to modification for use in the
current study, and had discriminated well in previous
studies. Modification in the current study involves
the deletion of the named minority group and the
random insertion of a new group.
Some statements could not be reworded and
modified for purposes of this study and were therefore eliminated; for example, "The true Christian
can never forgive the Jews for their crucifixion of
Christ." If the Iwo italicized groups were deleted
no other minorities could be randomly substituted
and still have the full statement make any sense. An
example of a stem that was used is the following:
"The Jewish problem is so deep and general that
one often doubts that democratic methods can ever
solve it." In this example, Jewish could be deleted

879

and Irish, Negro, or Catholic randomly assigned,

and the full statement would still be meaningful.
Groups were randomly assigned to these negatively valued stems in random order to insure that
there was no "necessary" relation between the group
characteristic, and the specific group with which
it was to be associated. Thirteen groups were utilized
as targets in the IRS. These groups represented the
major racial, religious, social class divisions, and
several of the most prominent nationality groups in
the United States. Specifically, the targets were:
Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious preferences;
Oriental and Negro racial groups; upper, middle, and
lower socioeconomic classes; and German, Italian,
Irish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican nationalities. Each
of the three religious groups was randomly assigned
to three statements, resulting in a religious subscale
of 9 items. The two racial groupings were randomly
assigned to three statements each, making a racial
subscale of 6 items. Each social class was randomly
assigned to three items, making a subscale of 9
items. Finally, each of the five nationalities was
randomly assigned to two statements, resulting in a
nationality subscale of 10 items. The establishment
of four separate subscales permits an analysis of the
generality of ethnocentrism as it is manifest in these
different outgroup dimensions, and a test of the
hypothesis that persons who are prejudiced with
respect to religious groups will also manifest national origin, social class, and racial prejudice.
The Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale
(ATDP) was designed to measure the way individuals view persons who are physically disabled
(Yuker, Block, & Campbell, 1960). This scale is
represented as measuring the extent to which the
disabled person is seen as different from the physically normal person. Wright (1960) explains that, in
the language of interpersonal relations, to be different or set apart often signifies rejection. The ATDP,
then, should provide a "general measure of prejudice toward the physically disabled [Yuker et al.,
1960, p. 13]." The ATDP consists of 20 Likert-type
statements, and the subject indicates the degree of
his agreement or disagreement with each item. Each
statement suggests that disabled persons are either
the same as, or different from, nondisabled persons
in their personality or need for special social relations. For instance, one such item is: "Disabled
people are more easily upset than nondisabled people." Agreement with this item suggests an emotional difference between physically disabled people
and nondisabled people.
The ATDP has been found to be highly correlated with the degree of contact between subjects
and disabled persons. Subjects who have had contact with disabled persons in their family or work
place generally manifest lower scores than those
persons who have not had such intimate contact
(Yuker et al., 1960). Unpublished studies at Hofstra University indicate that students change their
attitudes toward the disabled after they have been
exposed to a semester's instruction by a well-liked
and competent instructor who is physically handicapped.

880

BRIEF ARTICLES
TABLE 1

PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE SUBSCALES OP THE IRS AND BETWEEN THE
SUBSCALES AND THE FULL IRS
Scale

IRS
Race
Religion
Nationality
Social Class

IRS

Race

Religion

Nationality

ATDP

+ .53**

-.52**
-.45**
- .40**
-.43**
-.46**

+.82**

+.82**
+.88**
+.81**

+ .59**
+ .69**
+.51**

TABLE 3
PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE
ATDP, AND THE IRS AND THE
SUBSCALES OF THE IRS

+ .64**
+ .58**

IRS
IRS-Race
IRS-Religion
IRS-Nationality
IRS-Social Class
** p < .01.

**p < .01.

Both the IRS and the ATDP were administered

to samples of 11 Hofstra University students enrolled in introductory psychology courses, and 243
high-school students attending a week long conference on human relations. The National Conference
of Christians and Jews (1960) sponsors this human
relations program in the expectation that some
individuals' attitudes will change and other individuals can be provided with the means for the expression and fruition of their values. Therefore, the
high-school students are probably atypical of the
adolescent school population in terms of their interests in intergroup problems, and their leadership
activities in school or community organizations. The
high-school population was asked to respond to
the instruments immediately upon their arrival at
the conference site, prior to their exposure to the
NCCJ's education program.

subpopulations into a single population with an

N of 320.
An index of the reliability of the IRS was
obtained for the subsample of Hofstra University students. The uncorrected Spearman-Brown
split-half reliability coefficient is +.84, when
corrected for attenuation, +.91. This reliability
coefficient is comparable with the similar corrected coefficients for the California Anti-Semitism Scale (+.92) and the California E Scale
(+.91) (Adorno et al., 19SO, pp. 73, 112). Cronbach (19S1) has suggested the coefficient alpha
as a homogeneity or internal consistency measure. The coefficient alpha can be applied to subtests in the following manner:
SF sul>te,sts~

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The high school and college populations did not
differ significantly in their scores on the two
scales. The mean for the college population on
the IRS was 39.64, for the high-school population it was 41.64 (ns). On the ATDP scale the
college mean was 75.44 and the high school mean,
77.21 (MS). We have already noted that these
high-school students are atypical of the adolescent school population and are probably more
like the collegiate sample than a random sample
of high-school-age youngsters. In view of these
findings, all further operations combine these
TABLE 2
ATDP MEANS AND CRITICAL RATIOS BY SEX AND
CONTACT WITH DISABLED PERSONS
N

Sex
Male
Female
Contact with disabled
Know disabled persons
Don't know disabled persons

* P < .05.
**P < .01.

177

73.89
78.36 2.54*

103
217

80.01
75.2-!

108

2.59**

where V is the variance and n is the number of

subtests. The coefficient alpha obtained for the
IRS is +.66, indicating, roughly, the amount of
variance attributable to a single factor. These
manipulations suggest there is considerable homogeneity among responses to the items in the IRS.
Persons who respond a certain way to one outgroup arc likely to respond in a similar fashion
to other outgroups.
The correlation matrix in Table 1 presents the
product-moment correlations among the four subscales of the IRS, and between each of the subscales and the full scale. Intercorrelations among
the four subscales range from +.51 to +.69,
exhibiting moderate to high degrees of positive
relationship. The correlations between the subscales and the full scale range from +.81 to
+.88, representing a high degree of relationship.
All of these correlation coefficients are statistically different from zero (p < .01).
The indication that measures of all four dimensions of ethnocentrism-racial, religious, nationality, and social class correlate positively
significantly with each other and with the total
scale is a direct confirmation of the initial hypothesis. These findings suggest that individuals

881

BRIEF ARTICLTCS
who express ethnocentrism toward racial groups,
are also likely to express such attitudes toward
religious groups, toward nationality groups, and
towards social class divisions. Both interitem and
interscale correlations indicate that ethnocentrism is expressed to outgroups in general, rather
than to only specific types of outgroups.
In all the above cases, the social class subscale showed the lowest intercorrelations. The
reason may be that social class is probably the
least obvious and most fluid interpersonal category. Races can be distinguished by their physical characteristics, and religious and nationality
groups are usually identifiable by distinctive customs and traditions. The social class groups are
probably not so easily identifiable, and therefore
not as pinpointed as more distinctive outgroups.
In the American culture, it is probably easier for
a person to change his social class than to change
on any one of the other three dimensions. Individuals can shift from one class to another, and
therefore the membership of a given class cannot be identified quite as consistently as can
members of other outgroups.
Yuker et al. (1960) report that females score
higher on the ATDP than do males and persons
who have had contact with disabled persons tend
to score higher than persons who have not had
such contact. Data from the present study which
are relevant to these findings are presented in
Table 2.
Table 2 substantiates the findings of Yuker et
al. (1960). Females scored significantly higher
on the ATDP than males (p < .OS), indicating
greater acceptance of the disabled outgroup members. Further, people who have had contact with
disabled individuals scored significantly higher,
that is, showed greater acceptance, than persons
without such contacts (p < .01).
Table 3 presents product-moment correlations
between the IRS and the ATDP. AH correlations
are in the hypothesized direction, since high
scores on the IRS indicate ethnocentrism and
low scores on the ATDP indicate rejection of the
disabled. The full IRS manifests the greatest coefficient of correlation with the ATDP, .52.
The subscale correlations range from .40 to
.46. All these correlation coefficients are statistically different from zero beyond the .01
level, and thus support Hypothesis 2.
These results suggest that for some purposes
the physically disabled can be conceptualized as
a minority group subject to many of the same
attitudinal and behavioral predispositions as are
ethnic minorities. Our findings regarding general
categories of disabled persons support Himes'
(1960) and Handel's (1960) results regarding

particular types of physical handicaps. The results also support those authors who suggest that
ethnocentrism, or prejudice, is a general phenomenon expressed towards a wide variety of
outgroups and is not narrowly focused on one or
another particular minority group.
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Journal oj Personality and Social Psychology

1965, Vol. 2, No. 6, 882-884

DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS VERSUS DISSONANCE REDUCTION AS DETERMINANTS OF FAILURESEEKING BEHAVIOR

IRWIN SILVERMAN AND CHARLES MARCANTONIO
State University of New York at

Buffalo

Based on Ward and Sandvold's rcinlerpretation of Aronson and Carlsmith's

findings, the failure-expectancy condition of the latter study was replicated
with reliability-validity emphasis included for one group and excluded for
another. In contrast to Ward and Sandvold's position, the present data suggested that the reliability-validity emphasis increased success-seeking behavior
at the expense of consistency-seeking behavior. An alternate explanation of
the differences between Ward and Sandvold's and Aronson and Carlsmith's
findings is offered.

Aronson and Carlsmith (1962) performed an

experiment, based on dissonance theory, in which
they demonstrated that subjects who were led to
expect that they would either succeed or fail on
a given test altered their performance to conform
to these expectancies. Ward and Sandvold
(1963) contended that consistency-seeking behavior on the part of the subjects in the Aronson
and Carlsmith study may be interpreted as a
response to demand characteristics (Orne, 1962)
rather than a mechanism of dissonance reduction,
inasmuch as these authors emphasized to their
subjects the reliability and validity of the test.
Ward and Sandvold performed a partial replication of the study in which experimenter demands
were excluded by eliminating that portion of
Aronson and Carlsmith's introduction to the
subjects which stressed reliability and validity.
Subjects in the Ward and Sandvold study altered

their performance in the direction of achieving

greater success, regardless of their expectancy.
It is considered that though these findings are
suggestive of a demand-characteristic bias in
the Aronson and Carlsmith study, more conclusive support for Ward and Sandvold's interpretation requires a replication in which it is
demonstrated that consistency-seeking behavior
is obtained with reliability and validity emphasis
included and success-seeking behavior is obtained
with this emphasis removed. The need for this
type of replication, which was attempted in the
present study, is particularly salient in light of
the fact that the paradigm used by Ward and
Sandvold differed from Aronson and Carlsmith's
in a number of aspects other than those considered relevant to the demand-characteristics
interpretation.