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METHOD

Subjects Subjects were 35 white females enrolled in summer classes at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. [...]. The average age of the subjects was 23.82, and 94.3 percent of them were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds, with 22.9 percent clearly within the upper class. These subjects were not naive concerning other ethnic groups. In fact, 74.3 percent reported having frequent social contact with one or more ethnic groups other than their own. However, since these subjects were assigned at random to either the trained or the control (nontrained) group, such prior knowledge would not differentially suppress the comparative effect of training.

Apparatus [...]. In addition to training materials, scales were needed to test subjects’ knowledge of black subjective culture, attitudes toward Blacks, and anxiety. A practice game was required as well as a game to be used for the final behavioral task. [...].

Culture assimilator. The assimilator was composed of 40 critical incidents from the Slobodin et al. (1972) assimilator for teaching Whites about black culture. [...]

Test of intercultural sensitivity. Ten of the 25 TICS items were chosen for this study to assess subjects’ abilities to make isomorphic attributions with regard to the behavior of Blacks. Attitude scale. [...] After reading the TICS stories, subjects rated each of the characters in the story as they imagined the other character would, thus producing a rating indicative of the subjects’ perception of attitudes between Blacks and Whites. Ratings were made also on markers that tapped the three affective factors of evaluation, potency, and activity and five behavioral intentions factors of respect, friendship, social distance, intimacy, and superordination.

Anxiety scale. Spielberger, Corsuch, and Lushene’s anxiety self-evaluation questionnaire was adapted for the present study and used with two of the three TICS items containing the attitude measures. The original scale contains two sections: a “state” anxiety [...] and a “trait’ ’ anxiety [...]. [...]. However, the scale was changed from first person to third person, matching the semantic and behavioral differentials, so that subjects rated their perceptions of how each character in the story was feeling at the time.

Practice game. Each subject who received practice worked with a black confederate on a puzzle which consisted of a board with 15 indentions to hold marbles. Four binary-position levers on the board could be thrown back and forth in various combinations to move a hole around the board allowing marbles to fall through. The object was for the dyad to discover the particular combination of lever movements which would in four moves drop four yellow marbles placed at various positions on the board and leave all the 11 blue marbles placed in the other positions. Each dyad was given two such puzzles to solve. [...] The supportiveness of the interaction was assured by the simplicity of the task and through instructing confederates to initiate friendly conversation and to compliment the subject on good moves when appropriate.

Behavioral task. Each subject worked with a confederate on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lost on the Moon test. The dyad was asked to imagine itself on the moon, the land rover broken so that it would be necessary to walk the remaining miles to the rendezvous point. Fifteen items had to be ranked in order of importance for the trip. The dyad worked under a 10-minute time constraint to reach consensus on the rank ordering, after which the confederate rated the subject on two scales: “personal likability” and “desirability as a coworker. ”

Procedure Subjects were randomly assigned to various groups in the design. Half the subjects received culture assimilator training on the first day followed by the modified TICS questionnaire, which included the attitude and anxiety scales. The control group received only the modified TICS. On the fourth day after training half the subjects received the practice interaction while half did not. The third dimension along which subjects were split was the timing of the behavioral task; half the subjects participated in the NASA game on the fourth day and half on the seventh day after training. The first two items of the modified TICS questionnaire were readministered to certain subjects either on the fourth or the seventh day. [...] subjects were led to believe that they would be participating in two separate experiments. One study, they were told, was to be an evaluation of a race relations training program, while the other was an evaluation of games which would potentially be used in camps and sensitivity groups. After both the practice and the NASA game, subjects filled out questionnaires rating each of the exercises. This aided in the deception and also provided information on the subjects’ enjoyment of the game [...].