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Relationship betweenStereotypes and SocialDistanceHenning G. Viljoen aa Department of Psychology , Rand AfrikaansUniversity , South AfricaPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Henning G. Viljoen (1974) Relationship between Stereotypesand Social Distance, The Journal of Social Psychology, 92:2, 313-314, DOI:10.1080/00224545.1974.9923115

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1974.9923115

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 1974, 92, 313-314

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STEREOTYPES AND SOCIAL DISTANCE*’

Departmenl of Psychology, Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa

HENNING G . VILJOEN

In the literature on prejudice it is usually taken for granted that there is a close relationship between stereotypes and social distance as dimensions of ethnic prejudice. The aim of the present study is to determine whether the relationship also exists when the subjects have to respond towards ethnic groups in their own population structure: e.g., in a pluralistic society, such as South Africa. Therefore the stereotypes and social distance of African and Indian students towards the different ethnic groups in South Africa were measured (Afrikaans- and English-speaking whites, coloreds, Jews, Africans, and Indians).

A two-part questionnaire compiled by Viljoen2 was used. The first section for determining stereotypes consisted of a checklist based on the Katz and Braly technique. The second section aimed at social distance was based on an adaptation of the original Bogardus Social Distance Scale. The questionnaire was applied to all first-year students of psychology at the African universities-i.e., of the North (125 subjects), Zululand (100 sub- jects), and Fort Hare (90 subjects)-as well as the Indian University College at Durban (104 subjects).

A qualitative comparison was drawn between the stereotype and social distance responses of the subjects, the results eliciting only partial proof for the assumed relationship. First, an overall positive stereotype image of an ethnic group was accompanied by fairly close social contact. Subjects of all universities stereotyped the English speaking Whites in positive terms such as courteous, hospitable, generous, intelligent, and liberalistic (stereotype- index 4,7) and the social distance responses culminated on the second dimension of closeness on the scale, “to admit him to my home as personal

* Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on April 25, 1973. Copyright, 1974, by The Journal Press.

The results of this study form part of an unpublished Doctoral thesis “Stereotypes and social distance as dimensions of ethnic prejudice in Bantu and Indian Students,” submitted to the University of Pretoria. The research was supported by the Human Sciences Research Council.

* Viljoen, H. G . National stereotypes and social distance among a group of Afrikaans speaking students. South African J . Sociol., 1972, 4, 61-68.

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314 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

friends” (35% - 55% of all the response). Second, an overall negative image was accompanied by a remote social distance. Subjects of all univer- sities stereotyped the Afrikaans-speaking whites in negative terms, such as “verkramp” (close-minded), cruel, excessively patriotic, aggressive (stereotyped index ranging from 3.0-3.5 for the different groups) and the social distance responses culminated in the most remote distance, “to exclude him from my country” (66% - 95% of all the responses). Third, there were the groups where additional factors, such as color of the skin or the ingroup relationship, played a crucial part in the social distance which the subjects wished to maintain but without corresponding negative or positive stereotypes. This was illustrated in the discrepancy between the stereotypes and social distance responses of the African and Indian subjects towards the English-speaking whites and the attitudes towards their own ingroups. In every instance the English-speaking whites were stereotyped in more positive terms than the self-stereotype of the African and Indians, or the stereotypes of the other dark-skinned ethnic group, the coloreds; but the maintenance of a closer social distance with the own ingroup or the other darker-skinned ethnic groups was preferred to that with the English- speaking whites. Consequently, the assumed relationship could not be established for all ethnic groups. Rand Afrikaans University P.O. Box 524 Johannesburg, South Africa

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