Impact Of Openness To Experience On Interracial Attitudes And Impression Formation

A recent study has tried to demonstrate that the Openness to Experience concept may have lesson the negative stereotyping white perceivers toward black people. The Openness and experience concept refers to wanting to make a change to our attitude and behavior after you have encounter a new idea or experience (Digmon, 1990; John, 1990).

Prejudice in the United States has been a problem for many many years; especially toward black people. One reason for prejudice toward black people is the negative stereotyping that has developing throughout the years. Francis Flynn conducted a study to support the prediction of how the Openness to Experience theory affects the interracial attitudes. Flynn predicted that those individuals who scored relatively higher on the Openness to Experiences test are more open minded and are less prejudice toward black people and the individual who scored lowered were more likely prejudice and aren't willing to change.

The method that was uses to conduct this prediction was the experimental study. Seventy - eight white students from Columbia University volunteered in this study and they were paid $5 for 20 minutes for their time. Each partipant had to complete an anonymous web based survey on the computer. The first assessment had to do with the Openness to Experience theory. This was measured by using 10 items that was taken form the Big Five Inventory. Sample items from the list is, "Likes to reflect, play with ideas," and "Is ingenious, a deep thinker." Each item was measured on a 5 point scale ranging from characteristic to uncharacteristic. In the second assessment the white participates were ask to take a questionnaire about social and political attitudes. He called this assessment the explicit racial attitudes. The modern Racism, Pro-Black and the Discrimination and Diversity Scale were used to explicit racial attitudes. An example of one of these scales that was used includes