Out-group Perception During Direct Contact

A stereotype is a generalization about all members of a particular group,including positive stereotypes and negative ones.The most crucial role of stereotypes is to assist people to adapt to complicated and unfamiliar social surroundings,therefore the study of stereotypes towards out-group is an important section of studies of cross-cultural adaption.Based on "Contact Hypothesis"(Allport,1954),this thesis investigated the changes of stereotypes of Chinese young students in the process of direct contact with German people,and studied the causes of such changes.Quantitative methods were applied into testing stereotypes.The data of our experiments were collected by questionnaires and analyzed quantitatively by statistical software "Stata 12".The participants included exchange students and trainees.The exchange students were Chinese college students who studied one year in German Colleges and universities.The trainees were Chinese graduate students who took an internship in Germany.This study consisted of three experiments.Experiment 1 longitudinally tested the stereotypes of exchanges students before and after direct contact with German people.The results showed no significant change in dimension of "warmth",while showed a significant decline in dimension of "competence".Experiment 2 synchronically parallel compared the differences of stereotypes between exchange students(having direct contact)and non-exchange students(having no direct contact).The results showed no significant differences between the two groups in "warmth",while the mean value of the former group in "competence" was significantly lower than the latter.The same conclusion could be drawn from Experiment 1 and 2.Experiment 3 illustrated those longitudinal changes by trainees before and after direct contact.In all,the results of our study indicated that after direct contact with German society,the mean value in"warmth" dimension was significantly lower,while there was no significant change in "competence" dimension.Thus,the same conclusion could not be drawn from the Experiment 1 and 3.The quantitative results of our study verified the presumption we introduced at the very beginning,i.e.that direct contact with German society will affect the Chinese young students' stereotypes towards German people,and described intuitively the changes of the stereotypes.The results also showed that stereotypes of different groups had different changes.There were no significant changes of stereotypes in "warmth" dimension by exchange students while a significant decline in the same dimension by trainees.Moreover,there were no significant changes in"competence" dimension by trainees while a significant decline in the same dimension by exchange students.To explain the phenomenon,we designed qualitative methods,which applied interviews into data collection,and also adopted the methods of interpretative phenomenological analysis(IPA)to fulfill data analysis.In "warmth" dimension,the interviewees have positive stereotypes towards German,such as "polite","friendly","trustworthy",and "reliable".Most of these stereotypes had existed even before their direct contact with German society,and then were entrenched during direct contact.Because of the existence of positive cases,those exchange students had not expand the scope of the stereotype to the entire German people,in spite of their complaints against their German roommates about "not cleaning dishes in the shared kitchen".As"speak too honestly"concerned,this behavior was not directed at any specific group,therefore it had not negatively affected the inter-group perception of Chinese young students.All the above explained the results of Experiment 1,i.e.,after direct contact,there was no significant change of exchange students' stereotypes in "warmth" dimension.Some Chinese trainees experienced German's "criticizing China in my presence",which incurred negative mood,and became the first cause that lowered the mean value in"warmth" dimension.The fact was compatible with "in-group favoritism,criteria in Social Identity.Theory(SIT)and indicated the"national identification" by Chinese young students.Moreover,it explained the results of Experiment 3,i.e.,after direct contact,there was a significant decline in the mean value of trainees' stereotypes in"warmth" dimension.In "competence" dimension,the former stereotypes of exchange students toward German were almost positive,such as "rigorous","inflexible" and "observing discipline".But in the progress of direct contact,these stereotypes had undergone a change from "abstract stereotypes" to "concrete stereotypes".And the experiences of exchange students had made the stereotypes not absolutely positive anymore.Further,among the three newly entrenched stereotypes,both of "inefficient" and"bureaucratic"were negative.This explained the conclusion drawn from Experiment 1,i.e.,after direct contact,there was a significant decline in "competence"dimension.As for trainees,since they had direct contact with German society prior to this study,their stereotypes toward German had already completed the transformation from abstract ones to concrete ones,so that their stereotypes in"competence" dimension did not change significantly.With reconciled quantitative and qualitative methods,this study not only investigated the changes of Chinese young students' stereotypes after direct contact with German society,but also explained the causes of such changes.In the quantitative session of our study,the used Semantic Differential Scale was designed in the framework Stereotype Content Model(SCM,Fiske et al.,2002)by our pilot study session.In other words,the scale was suited to Chinese young students.In the qualitative session,our subjects consisted of exchange students,overseas students and trainees,so as to demonstrate an overall picture of those sub-group's stereotypes towards German people.The major limitation of the study was that the author's experiences of direct contact might inevitably influence the research results.This study was motivated by caring about Chinese overseas students,with the purpose of accumulating experiences so as to help them to adapt cross-culturally in a foreign country.At the end of the thesis more possibilities of related research in Cultural Adaption were mentioned.