A Social Distance Test in the Near East

Bibliographic Data

ID2199442
AuthorsStuart C Dodd (corresponding author)
Year1935
Volume41
Issue2
Pages194-204
Publication date1935-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/217056
OpenAlexW2024725543
LanguageEN
Citations received9

Five statements of attitude ranging from friendly to hostile were so chosen, from a set of thirty-nine statements by the ratings of sixty judges, as to secure (a) equidistance between statements, (b) minimal ambiguity, (c) maximal reliability. Four tests were constructed applying these five statements to fifteen national groups, eleven religious groups, five economic levels, and three educational levels in the Near East. On correlating the tests as given to 170 Freshmen with the results from a repetition after a month, the distances between groups showed reliability correlations varying from .70 to .96. Tables of the 174 distances between all pairs of groups and between in-groups and out-groups were computed. This technic yields possibilities of quantitative definitions of various sociological concepts. Economic groups desire to ascend but they prefer to remain in familiar in-groups rather than become too intimate with a very diferent out-group. An experimental attempt was made to modify religious distances through a college course. The greatest gain in friendliness was toward the Bahais and the Jews

Ambiguity · Group (periodic table) · Linguistics · Reliability (semiconductor) · Repetition (rhetorical device) · Set (abstract data type) · Sociology · Test (biology) · Computer Science · Demography · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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