At least four-fifths of the American population have feelings of hostility towards some minority group, it is revealed in a study released today by Dr. Stuart W. Cook, Director of the Commission on Community Interrelations of the American Jewish Congress.
This conclusion is based on a study of the life-experience of 437 college students made by Gordon W. Allport, professor of psychology at Harvard University, and Bernard M. Kramer, a Harvard graduate student. The subjects of the study were on rolled in elementary courses in psychology in Dartmouth, Harvard and Radcliffe. Eighty percent of these students admitted some form of prejudice against a minority group, Dr. Cook declared. Women students were found less prejudiced than men.
Students reported on the extent to which they thought their attitudes toward minority groups had been influenced by their parents. Eighteen percent said that they had taken over their parents’ attitudes, 51 percent that they had taken them over but modified them, 6 percent that they had reacted against such attitudes and 25 percent that they had not been influenced.
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