A STUDY OF THE JAPANESE ATTITUDES OF LIKES AND DISLIKES TOWARD VARIOUS NATIONALITIES

To inquire the general tendency of the attitudes of likes and dislikes which the Japanese have toward their own and other 17 main races and also to examine the differences of attitudes, if any, between the student and adult group.<BR>Procedure:<BR>1. Subjects: 246 students of Kumamoto University and of Kumamoto Women's University (male 21.3 years aud female, 19.9 years in average age). 168 adults of Kumamotoites (male, 46.6 years and female, 40.5 years).<BR>2. Date: The survey was administered in October and Novenber 1954.<BR>3. Method: The questionnaire method in which the subjects were instructed to answer three questions giving the rank of likes as to 18 races, checking the reasons for likes and dislikes and their ways of contact with those races.<BR>Summary of result:<BR>(A) The general tendency of attitudes toward 18 races.<BR>1. Their own race is first ranked in the order of their likes. This is presumably duedo minantly to the feeling of self-love. There are, however, among subjects, some having extreme feelings of selfhostility. Especially among the students, this tendency is strong.<BR>2. As for the other races, the subjects reveal remarkably the stereotyped favorable attitudes toward the German, the French and the English, and the extremely unfavorable or hostile attitudes toward the Australan, the Negro, the Jew, and particularly toward the Korean. The favorable tendency decreases in the order of the Swiss, the American, the Italian and the Indian, whereas the hostile tendency increases in the order of the Brazilian, the Chinese, the Burmese, the Indonesian, the Filipino and the Russian. Generally speaking, the trends show the higher degree of likes toward the European and the Anglo-American races than toward the Asiatic and the Negro races. It seems that a deeply-rooted inferiority complex or selt-hostility of the Japanese nation has been derived from the racial prejudice, developing since early meiji Era (about 1860), that the white races are superior to the coloured. As for the Korean, because of the very close relationship with the Japanese both spatially or historically, there has always been a conflict of interests between them for a long time, and especially after the Second World War, the sudden change in the statuses of both races seems to have put spurs to the strong stereotyped hostile attitude of the Japanese toward the Korean.<BR>3. There is a positive relationship between the variety of reasons for likes and bislikes and ways of contact on the one hand and the rank order of likes and dislikes on theother hand. The feeling of likes or dislikes seems to be determined to a great extent by certain reasons (e. g. the appearance, the psychological characteristics and the political standpoint of the race, etc.) and as the sources of the knowledge about them, the mass-media, chiefly the newspaper, play a significant role. It may therefore, be said that the feeling of likes or dislikes toward those races has not yet been firmly established and they only evaluate them vaguely as desirable or hateful. The above is, however, not applicable to the attitude toward the Korean.<BR>(B) The difference of attitudes toward the races between the groups of students and adults.<BR>Great similarity lies between the two groups as to the reason for likes and dislikes and the ways of contact and the degree of like.(The rank order coefficient of correlation is above 0.900 in each case.) The sexual difference of attitudes in each group is also insignificant. The adult-group, however, indicates a remarkably favorable attitude toward the American, whereas the student-group shows a considerable trend of hostility. On the contrary, the former has strong hostility toward the Russian, but the latter is more favorable. A considerable shift of attitudes toward those two races is thus found between the adult and the student group.