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Essay "Critical review of LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs. Actions” article "

Critical review of LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs. Actions” article
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Doing Psychology: History and professional issues ((SPS400.1))

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Brian Sisicay
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Critical review of LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs. Actions” article

Summary

In Richard T LaPiere’s article “Attitudes VS Actions” (1934), he investigated whether the prejudicial attitudes of Americans, during the 1930s, towards the Chinese would symbolise or match their response when faced with a Chinese individual. La Piere’s study involved a 2 year observation of a young Chinese couple in which they visited 66 hotels and 128 restaurants. However, whilst on this voyage, LaPiere surreptitiously kept detailed records of the responses given by hotel owners, hotel clerks and other employees within the establishments visited. The findings showed that LaPiere and his two Chinese companions were refused service only once out of the 251 establishments visited. He concluded that the discriminatory attitudes of the Americans towards the Chinese were due to clothing and cleanliness rather than race and that surveys are not a suitable method for examining the link between attitudes and behaviour.

Review

The debate of whether attitudes influence behaviour has been an important phenomenon for social psychologists for decades. A widely recognised definition would come from Gordon Allport (1935). According to him “An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related”. Many social psychologists claim that if scientists are to predict or change behaviour, then they must change the underlying attitudes (Dollard, 1949; Krech & Crutchfield, 1948; Kutner, Wilkins & Yarrow, 1970; Lewin, 1999). However, as LaPiere’s study on prejudicial attitudes has shown, the attitude-behaviour relationship is much more complex.

The 1930s were a time of instability and tension due to the Depression and immigration of different races which had influenced the prejudices of many Americans. LaPiere’s prior comparative research of English and French attitudes towards dark skinned peoples during 1927 was a study which sparked his interest in whether a verbal response would match its subsequent behaviour.

The visit of a small Californian hotel (which had a reputation of prejudice towards Orientals) was the situation which influenced LaPiere’s interest in examining social attitudes. When phoned by LaPiere, the hotel had said “No” to the question of whether they would allow a Chinese gentleman in their establishment, even though that same hotel had accommodated LaPiere and his Chinese companions two months earlier. The methods used were a questionnaire and a 2 year covert observation as LaPiere kept his true intentions from the Chinese couple and the US establishments visited a secret, and used a range of ruses so he could secretly observe the interactions between the Chinese couple and the 251 US establishments visited.

The findings showed that LaPiere and his two Chinese companions were refused service only once out of the 251 establishments visited. In addition, LaPiere sent out a questionnaire 6 months later to the establishments visited, which included the question “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?” and found that out of the 128 (81 restaurants and 47 hotels) replies, 92% of the establishments replied “No”. LaPiere also used the same questionnaire where he

replaced the word “Chinese” with other nationalities such as French, German etc; the findings showed that 91% of the US establishments replied “No”.

Since LaPiere’s research was an observation, this means that he’s study has ecological validity as there was no experimental control. However, the use of observation could also fall prone to human subjectivity as LaPiere could have kept records or written down instances which he may have assumed rather than occurred. Nonetheless, the use of somewhat covert observation would have also minimised observer effects, therefore strengthening his research, as participants (Chinese couple, hotel clerks and motel owners etc.) would have acted normally. This therefore supplements LaPiere’s study in terms of validity.

The ethical integrity of the whole study could also come into question because LaPiere deceived the Chinese couple and US establishments into believing he were a regular tourist, when actually a psychologist secretly taking notes. The lack of informed consent in LaPiere’s study could also be an issue worthy to deem this piece of research as unethical if replicated in modern society. In addition, LaPiere’s research would be difficult for current psychologists to replicate as there are now a range of anti-discrimination acts which prevent US establishments and other countries from rejecting potential customers on the basis of race. Another criticism of LaPiere’s study would be the lack of operationalised terms. For example, he described the Chinese couple as being “skilful smilers” which is too ambiguous to be included in a scientific article, as LaPiere’s subjectivity may have influenced him to label the couple as “skilful smilers”.

The sample used was an appropriate one as he wanted to investigate the prejudicial attitudes of Americans’ towards those of Chinese descent, which strengthens his research because he highlighted a popular phenomenon amongst the American population during the early 20 century which is still prominent in contemporary social psychology. However, it can be questioned whether the characteristics of such a small sample (Chinese couple) would be representative of the whole population.

What many psychologists tend to forget about LaPiere’s influential study was that he was also trying to highlight that questionnaires (or other quantitative methods) may be a cheap and inexpensive method, but are less effective in measuring whether an individual will actually act out their attitudes. For example, Kutner, Wilkins and Yarrow (1952) conducted a similar observation where two white women entered 11 US restaurants, quickly followed by a Negro woman. 17 days later, letters were sent to the establishments visited which asked whether they would accept Negroes in their establishments; none of the establishments replied. However, when the letters were sent to the establishments again, without the inclusion of racial groups, 10 of the establishments accepted the reservations. In addition, many other psychologists’ state that the results from attitude measurements are just artefact’s, and question whether these measurements can actually predict behaviour (Tittle and Hill, 1970). However, Jacobson found that “it was possible to predict attitudes only where people’s prior attitudes were extreme”. Nonetheless, the use of questionnaires to gauge the distance between attitudes and behaviour could give rise to social desirability bias, whereby participants would give responses which they believe to be desired by society rather than their actual attitudes. This could therefore affect the validity of such methods. Wicker (1969) questions whether there will ever be a reliable way of testing the link between attitudes and behaviour.

Reference list

Robert A. Baron, Nylar R, Branscombe & Donn Byrne, “SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY”, 12th Edition pp.

Richard T LaPiere 2010, “Attitudes vs Actions”, Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association,

Michael W Firmin, “The seminal contribution of Richard LaPiere’s attitudes vs actions (1934) research study”.

Christopher Herrera, “Ethics and the rhetorical context of human research”, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Montclair state University, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA PP.

Edited by Joanne R smith & S Alexander Iaslam “Social Psychology revisiting the Classic studies”. First published 2012

“JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES”, Volume 25, Number 4, 1969.

Allan W. Wicker (1969), “Attitudes versus Actions: The Relationship of verbal and overt behavioural responses to Attitude Objects”. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Michael A. Hogg & Joel Cooper (2003), “The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology, concise student edition”, pp. 345.

Dennis Howitt, Michael Billing, Duncan Cramer, Derek Edwards, Bromley knivetion, Jonathan Potter & Alan Radley (1989), “Social Psychology, Conflicts and Continuations”, pp. 125

Miles Hewstone, Anthony S Manstead & Wolfgang Stroebe (1997), “The Blackwell Reader in Social Psychology”, pp.

Richard T. LaPiere “Race Prejudice: France and England”, Vol No (Sep, 1928) published by Oxford University Press.

Harris Chaiklin (2011), “Attitudes, Behaviour and Social Practice”, Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, pp. 32

Bibliography

Harris Chaiklin, “Attitudes, Behaviour, and social Practice”, published by University of Maryland school of social work.

Roger Jowell (1942), “British social attitudes. The 17th report: Focusing on diversity”, National Centre for Social Research London: SAGE 2000.

J. Richard Eiser (1986), “Social Psychology: Attitudes, Cognition and Social Behaviour”, published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.

Jonathan Potter & Margaret Wetherell (1987), “Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour.

Martin Bulmer, Julie Gibbs and Laura Hyman (2010) “Social Measurement Through Social Surveys: An applied Approach”. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Kirk, R B, “Journal of the American Dietetic Association (1959), Vol.

Keith Gibbins, “Nature” (1969), Vol (5191)

Barnes. C, “Dance Magazine” (2007), Vol (3)

Bastow. J, “Physiotherapy (1952). Vol.

Eberhart, Richard “Poetry” (1956), Vol (5)

Boynton, A & Oxlad, M, “Melanoma and its relationship with solarium use Health knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of young women”, Journal Of Health Psychology, (2011) Vol (6).

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Essay "Critical review of LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs. Actions” article "

Module: Doing Psychology: History and professional issues ((SPS400.1))

4 Documents
Students shared 4 documents in this course

University: University of Westminster

Was this document helpful?
Critical review of LaPiere’s “Attitudes vs. Actions” article
Summary
In Richard T LaPiere’s article “Attitudes VS Actions” (1934), he investigated whether the prejudicial
attitudes of Americans, during the 1930s, towards the Chinese would symbolise or match their
response when faced with a Chinese individual. La Piere’s study involved a 2 year observation of a
young Chinese couple in which they visited 66 hotels and 128 restaurants. However, whilst on this
voyage, LaPiere surreptitiously kept detailed records of the responses given by hotel owners, hotel
clerks and other employees within the establishments visited. The findings showed that LaPiere and
his two Chinese companions were refused service only once out of the 251 establishments visited.
He concluded that the discriminatory attitudes of the Americans towards the Chinese were due to
clothing and cleanliness rather than race and that surveys are not a suitable method for examining
the link between attitudes and behaviour.
Review
The debate of whether attitudes influence behaviour has been an important phenomenon for social
psychologists for decades. A widely recognised definition would come from Gordon Allport (1935).
According to him “An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through
experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects
and situations with which it is related”. Many social psychologists claim that if scientists are to predict
or change behaviour, then they must change the underlying attitudes (Dollard, 1949; Krech &
Crutchfield, 1948; Kutner, Wilkins & Yarrow, 1970; Lewin, 1999). However, as LaPiere’s study on
prejudicial attitudes has shown, the attitude-behaviour relationship is much more complex.
The 1930s were a time of instability and tension due to the Depression and immigration of different
races which had influenced the prejudices of many Americans. LaPiere’s prior comparative research
of English and French attitudes towards dark skinned peoples during 1927 was a study which sparked
his interest in whether a verbal response would match its subsequent behaviour.
The visit of a small Californian hotel (which had a reputation of prejudice towards Orientals) was the
situation which influenced LaPiere’s interest in examining social attitudes. When phoned by LaPiere,
the hotel had said “No” to the question of whether they would allow a Chinese gentleman in their
establishment, even though that same hotel had accommodated LaPiere and his Chinese
companions two months earlier. The methods used were a questionnaire and a 2 year covert
observation as LaPiere kept his true intentions from the Chinese couple and the US establishments
visited a secret, and used a range of ruses so he could secretly observe the interactions between the
Chinese couple and the 251 US establishments visited.
The findings showed that LaPiere and his two Chinese companions were refused service only once
out of the 251 establishments visited. In addition, LaPiere sent out a questionnaire 6 months later to
the establishments visited, which included the question “Will you accept members of the Chinese
race as guests in your establishment?” and found that out of the 128 (81 restaurants and 47 hotels)
replies, 92% of the establishments replied “No”. LaPiere also used the same questionnaire where he

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