PICTURES IN OUR HEADS

Te Ao Hou, March 1959, Page 40

It is not only the white races who have stereotyped ideas about other peoples; coloured races are just the same. In Africa, where the white man used to appear almost entirely as a master, the Negroes had their stereotyped notions of the European, and they were not always flattering. Look for instance at this West African carving of a European corporal, obviously the Negro sculptor's idea of the white man, proud and powerful, but by no means very likeable. Only better mutual understanding can remove such stereotypes. (Berkeley Galleries, London, reproduced from UNESCO Courier) PICTURES IN OUR HEADS by OTTO KLINEBERG One of the world's great evils is prejudice between nations and races. But just what is prejudice? How does a prejudiced mind work? In this essay the famous American psychologist Otto Klineberg explains it in very simple and clear language. It gives all of us, Maori as well as Pakeha, a chance to look into our own minds to see whether the pictures of other races we carry in our heads are based on prejudice or really correspond to the truth. In my hotel, I heard someone say, “Oh, she has that Scottish stubbornness, you know”. A book review in a newspaper used the phrase, “With true Gallic wit”. At the theatre during the interval, I caught part of a conversation in which a pretty girl said to her escort, “I know that all Americans have a ‘line’”; and in a mystery story that I read before retiring, there was a reference to “typical German thoroughness”. These are all instances of those “pictures in our heads” to which Walter Lippman gave the name of stereotypes. They are typical of the ease with which most of us generalize about peoples, usually without even stopping to think where such “information” comes from, and whether it represents the truth, the whole truth, or anything like the truth. There are certainly very few, if any, among us who have not succumbed to the temptation to stereotype nations. One might almost describe the tendency as inevitable, or at least very nearly so. We know that Englishmen are reserved, and Irishmen pugnacious. We have heard it all our lives; besides most people agree with us. If we are asked, however, how we know, we would not easily find a suitable answer. One of the earliest careful studies of this tendency was made by Katz and Braly, in 1932, in connexion with the stereotypes held by Princeton University students. The technique was simple. Each student was given a list of traits, and a list of nationalities; from the first list he chose

the five traits which he regarded as characteristic of each national or racial group. The results showed a fair degree of unanimity, e.g. out of 100 students 78 described the Germans as “scientifically minded”, and 65 described them as “industrious”, 53 students used the adjective “artistic” for the Italians, the same percentage described the English as “sportsman ike”, 79 agreed that the Jews were “shrewd” and 54 stated that the Turks were “cruel”, 84 regarded Negroes as “superstitious” and 75 described them as “lazy”. On a more extensive scale, a study conducted in 9 countries under the auspices of Unesco in 1948 and 1949, showed that such stereotyped thinking could easily be found almost anywhere. The British, for example, thought of Americans as primarily progressive, conceited, generous, peace-loving, intelligent, practical. The Americans regarded the British as intelligent, hardworking brave, peace-loving, conceited and self-controlled. The Norwegians described the Russians as hardworking, domineering, backward, brave, cruel and practical.