The examination of veridicality of American stereotypes held by Japanese

Includes bibliographical references (pages 50-52)The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether or not the correspondence between American stereotypes (American self-image) and American stereotypes held by Japanese varies as a function of the age-level, sex and explicit-language-proficiency of the Japanese raters. The correspondence between the American stereotypes held by Japanese and the American vereotypes obtained in the present study was compared with that of a study by Abate and Berrien (l067) (sic.). The Japanese subjects consisted of 194 individuals spanning three age groups: older teenagers, those in their 20's, and adults over 40. Each age group consisted of four subgroups; females who spoke English, females who did not speak English, males who spoke English, and males who did not speak English. The American subjects consisted of 110 individuals who were selected to be representative of all Americans in terms of age, sex, geography and socio-economic status. The measure used was one developed by Abate and\ud Berrfen (1967). The scale consists of 15 behavioral orientations drawn from the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. The Japanese subjects were instructed to judge how well these descriptions fit Americans in general. American subjects, on the other hand, were instructed to judge how well these descriptions fit themselves. The correlations between American vereotypes (self-image) and American stereotypes held by various subgroups of Japanese subjects were obtained. All correlations were positive, and some reached statistical significance. Because of increasing familiarity between Americans and Japanese, it was hypothesized that the correspondence between American stereotypes held by the Japanese and the American vereotypes (self-image) would be much higher than that obtained in Abate and Berrien's study (1967). That hypothesis was not supported. The major reason appeared to be the inadequacy of the scale to measure vereotypes due to its vulnerability to socially desirable responses. (See more in text.