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This article throws light upon the top four techniques used to study social attitudes. The techniques are: 1. Verbal Techniques 2. Pictorial Techniques 3. Play Techniques 4. Psychodrama and Sociodrama Techniques.
1. Verbal Techniques:
(a) Word Association Test:
In this test a number of words are presented to the subject, one by one, and he is asked to indicate the first thought that he associates with each word. The speed of response and its emotional concomitant, as well as its content may constitute valuable indicators of attitude.
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(b) Sentence Completion Technique:
This is another kind of verbal technique. The content of responses (in terms of completing the incomplete sentences) may provide considerable insight into the person’s attitude. This technique has been used for studying attitudes of various kinds. M. Kerr used it. For example, in the study of national stereotypes held by the English.
Some of the sentence beginnings employed in this study were as under:
(i) When I think of Russians, I think of….
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(ii) If you invite an American to your home, he may….
(c) Story and Argument completion Techniques:
In these tests the subject is given just enough of a story or argument to focus his attention on given issue but not enough to indicate how it will eventually turn out. He is then asked to supply a conclusion to the story or the argument. His response, i.e., the way he supplies the ending argument, is assumed to betray his deep-seated biases.
(d) Projective Questions:
The subject is asked to respond to a vague question, e.g., who are you/ Such question may take the form of asking about a possible event in the future or about an imaginary event. The subject’s response is taken to be indicative of his perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, etc., which would have predisposed him to answer the question the way he had done.
Sometimes projective questions take the form of asking about other people’s views, the assumption being that the respondent will find it easy to put critical or unpopular views which he cannot openly express, into the mouths of other people.
(e) Description:
This involves asking the respondent to describe the kind of person who would behave in a specified way. For example, the subject may be asked to describe the people who freely mix with a member of a specified ethnic group.
2. Pictorial Techniques:
Pictorial techniques, many of them borrowed from well established clinical procedures, have along been popular in the study of social attitudes.
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(a) T.A.T.:
Proshansky was one of the first to use the T.A.T. type of pictures in the study of social attitudes. Ambiguous pictures of situation involving labour were mixed with the regular T.A.T. pictures. The subjects were asked to describe what they thought the pictures represented.
Pictures of T.A.T. have been used in several studies of attitudes toward minority groups. For example, Adorno and associates in their “Authoritarian Personality” presented four pictures especially armed at uncovering attitudes towards minority groups, along with the regular T.A.T. pictures.
Fromme (1941) presented to subjects political cartoons, each with four alternative captions, representing different dimensions of attitudes. The subjects were asked to choose the alternative that in their view, fitted each cartoon best.
(b) The Rosenzweig Test:
It uses a cartoon format in which one character is represented as saying something. There is a blank space for another character and the subject is asked what this send character would probably say. J.E. Brown applied a modified version of the Resenzweig test for used in the study of ethnic attitudes.
3. Play Techniques:
The techniques involving manipulation of dolls have been used in investigating the attitudes of young children. Dolls have been used in investigating the attitudes of young children. Dolls clearly representing different ethnic or racial groups, say ‘white’ and ‘coloured’ dolls, may be given to the children.
They may be asked to play out specific scenes such as arranging a birth-day party. The inclusion or exclusion of certain types of dolls as well as the roles assigned to them would provide a score of the child’s attitudes toward the racial or ethnic groups. Hartley and Schwartz combined doll-play with pictorial material in studying inter-group attitudes of children’s.
4. Psychodrama and Sociodrama Techniques:
These techniques require that the subject act out a role, either as himself (Psychodrama) or as somebody else (sociodrama) as he would in a real-life situation. For example, a subject may be asked to play the role of a co-worker of some other racial group in some hypothetical situation (e.g., when the boss called him for an explanation).
The manner in which he plays the role, the history or backdrop that he creates for the roles, etc., may provide considerable insight into his attitudes. Psychodrama and sociodrama are among the few tools available for systematic investigation of social skills.
It should be noted toward the conclusion of this discussion that although the projective tests have provided a very potent tool for getting at the data of personal and private character, these present formidable difficulties all their own. One of the persistent difficulties in regard to data obtained by these means is that of interpretation.
What a particular response of the subjects really means is a question that does not find any unanimity of opinion. In view of this difficulty, one can only say that a much closer investigation of validity is needed. Some of the studies carried out to date have given encouraging evidence of correspondence between the results of an indirect test and those provided by an independent criterion.
Other studies have, however, revealed discrepancies. Between different measures. These raise serious questions about what these various tests really succeed in measuring. More attention, therefore, would need to be paid to validation of projective tests before they can make their full contribution to social research.