Effect of Social-Desirability Set in Responding to Questionnaires on Ethnic Stereotypes
Adjectives with negative favorability values, selected to describe Jews when the presented words are of equal favorability value, were paired with words of varying favorability that are not part of the Jewish stereotype. Paired comparisons were presented to 162 graduate students, with instructions to select the word in each pair more descriptive of Jews. There was a positive correlation (tau = .89) between favorability value of non-relevant words and frequency selected. However, these words were not selected by a majority at any favorability level. Since these negative words, with one exception, have not been part of the Jewish stereotype in prior studies using a checklist with words of varying favorability value, this procedure may mask negative stereotypes.