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Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether or not certain attitudes could be modified through classical conditioning. It was hypothesized that evaluations of Vietnamese and Afro-Americans would become more favorable after slides of each were paired with the presentation of positively evaluated words. Evaluations were made through the use of a semantic differential-type attitude scale (Osgood, 1952). Analysis of covariance demonstrated a significant increase in favorable evaluations of the Vietnamese only. The reason the evaluations of Afro-Americans did not demonstrate a similar change may have been due to the fact that Euro-American children's attitudes of Afro-Americans were too psychologically significant an issue to be modified by a single session of conditioning trials.

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Conditioning Away Prejudicial Attitudes in Children

Abstract

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References