Irwin Katz

Racial ambivalence and American value conflict: correlational and priming studies of dual cognitive structures

Des methodes correlationnelles et experimentales sont utilisees pour mesurer les differences individuelles dans les orientations et attitudes raciales chez des etudiants de race blanche

Attitudes toward posthumous organ donation and commitment to donate.

The medical need for human organs suitable for use as transplants far exceed the supply, and is growing. More favorable attitudes about organ donation would increase peoples willingness to sign posthumous donation pledges. But effective educational programs require information about the publics present views. Verbal attitude scales were constructed and administered to 110 adults, resulting in reliable measurement of two independent dimensions, prodonation and antidonation (r = .003). Cluster analysis of the instrument revealed that the positive dimension involves belief in the humanitarian benefits of organ donation and feelings of pride experienced by the donor. The negative dimension reflects fears of body mutilation and of receiving inadequate medical treatment when ones life is at risk. Pro and anti scores in combination predicted willingness to sign a donor card. A 2 X 2 analysis of variance (High-Low Positive X High-Low Negative) revealed significant main effects for both positive and negative attitude. Also, a significant interaction effect was obtained. Those subjects who had both strong positive attitudes and weak negative attitudes were especially willing to sign donor cards. Suggestions for designing educational campaigns to promote organ donation are offered.

Lay People's and Health Care Personnel's Perceptions of Cancer, Aids, Cardiac, and Diabetic Patients

Although some writers assume that negative attitudes toward cancer and other chronic disease patients are prevalent, systematic data have been scarce. Perceptions of patients and their illnesses were assessed for college students, nurses, medical students, and chiropractic students. Subjects rated cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and heart disease patients, as well as the nonill, on 21 bipolar trait items, selected to measure competence, moral worth, dependence, depression, and morbidity. There were also measures of social distance, cancer anxiety, disease beliefs, and ascribed illness responsibility. With minor exceptions, all subsamples perceived cancer victims less favorably than diabetics, heart patients, and the nonill on competence, dependence, depression, and morbidity. Cancer patients were always seen as even more depressed than AIDS sufferers but were rated just as favorably as well people on moral worth. People with AIDS were generally the most negatively evaluated and most rejected group. Cancer was consistently described as the most painful condition and, next to AIDS, the least understood medically and most deadly. Cancer anxiety was moderately predictive of perceptions of cancer victims, and ratings of illness responsibility were moderately predictive of moral worth ratings for the cancer and AIDS groups. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Ambivalence, guilt, and the scapegoating of minority group victims

This study dealt with denigration of black victims by white harmdoers. It was assumed that white racial attitudes tend to be ambivalent, rather than simply prejudiced, sympathetic, or indifferent. It was also assumed that ambivalence about a given group increases the likelihood of guilt arousal in encounters with members of the group, and consequent resort to guilt-reductive behavior, such as denigration. Two experiments were done. In the first, subjects were assigned the role of “instructor” and administered strong or mild electric shocks to a black or white confederate “learner as punishment for errors”. As predicted, pre- and postshock evaluations of the stimulus person showed greatest derogation in the Black Confederate-Strong Shock group. Next, the Black Confederate-Strong Shock condition was replicated, this time using subjects whose measured racial attitudes represented each of the four combinations of high or low prejudice, and high or low sympathy. As predicted, strongest derogation occurred among subjects who were both high on prejudice and high on sympathy (i.e., who were ambivalent).

Some Thoughts about the Stigma Notion

Goffman (1963) believes that the stigma notion can provide a unifying perspective in the field of intergroup relations. But except for his treatment, the term stigma has never been examined as a social psychological concept. In this paper a preliminary explication is attempted. Following a brief review of Goffmans contribution, three causal models of the stigmatization process are presented: attribute-as-cause, labeling, and scapegoat. Implications for research are discussed. Next described are some important dimensions of stimulus variation among different types of stigma: visibility, threat, potential for sympathy and pity arousal, and apparent responsibility of the possessor. Attitudes of observers toward a range of stigmas appear to be ambivalent, and an ambivalence-response amplification theory of social reactions to stigmatized individuals is mentioned, along with some empirical evidence.

Favorable Evaluations of Stigmatized Others

It has been suggested that ambivalence creates a tendency toward behavioral instability, in which responses toward the object of ambivalence are amplified, or exaggerated (cf. Freud, 1961). The direction of the response (positive or negative) presumably depends on whether the object of ambivalence is momentarily construed favorably or unfavorably. Though this hypothesis dealt with ambivalence toward specific individuals, it seems reasonable that response amplification may occur when one is confronted by any member of a group toward which one is ambivalent. This line of thought seems relevant to a large class of out-groups, seen as victimized by social injustice or impersonal fate, but also stigmatized as inferior or threatening. Blacks in America are a case in point. Perhaps ambivalence toward blacks has produced amplified responses among the white majority. Dienstbier (1970, Study I) has provided data consistent with this hypothesis. When socially desirable beliefs and values were ascribed to stimulus persons--i,e., when the person was favorably portrayed-the black was rated as more likeable than the white. When undesirable beliefs were ascribed to both--i.e,, when portrayal was unfavorable--the black

Ambivalence and evaluative response amplification

Each subject evaluated an interviewee on the basis of information in a transcript. The interviewee was portrayed either favorably or unfavorably; he was labeled as “handicapped” or “Chicano,” or he was not labeled. Half the subjects were exposed to a pretreatment designed to induce ambivalent affect toward the physically handicapped. These subjects subsequently evaluated the favorably portrayed handicapped interviewee more positively, and the unfavorably portrayed handicapped interviewee more negatively, than did control subjects. Moreover, this effect generalized to Chicano and nonstigmatized stimulus persons. Independent of this finding, subjects’ evaluations of the handicapped were more favorable than evaluations of the other stimulus persons.