Arab and American Autoand Heterostereotypes: A Cross-Cultural Study of Empathy

Abstract

Forty Arab and 21 American male university students were asked to rate a list of 250 adjectives, drawn from Gough's Adjective Check List, in terms of the extent to which each adjective was descriptive of the respondent. Seventeen adjectives were selected as more descriptive of Arab than American respondents, and 27 were selected as being more descriptive of American than Arab respondents. The adjectives thus selected were used to construct a forced-choice questionnaire of 30 contrasting Arab-American pairs. When the questionnaire was administered to a sample of 25 Arab and 25 American male students, Arabs were more successful in identifying typical American responses than Americans were in identifying typical Arab responses. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that the members of low-power (LP) groups would have more empathy for members of high-power (HP) groups than vice versa.