Do the Poor Know how We See Them?: Preliminary Study

Abstract

A poverty scale designed to measure attitudes toward the poor was administered to 104 disadvantaged youths from rural Appalachia. 55 Ss completed the scale for self and 49 Ss completed the scale as they supposed it might be answered by the manager of a large chain store. As predicted, Ss guessed that the manager would rate the poor more negatively than they would. Males viewed the poor more negatively than females, and for all Ss negative attititudes increase with social class, as roughly indexed by Ss' fathers' levels of education. It is suggested that this technique might be useful for assessing the degree to which the poor feel alienated from various groups, e.g., politicians, welfare administrators, social workers.