RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS A
BINATIONAL INTERFACE
AMERICAN JAPANESE INTERACTION *
IN A UNIVERSITY SETTING

Thesis for the. Degree of M. A. “
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
PATTERSON ARMSTRONG TERRY
196.9

 

 

 

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ABSTRACT
RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS A BINATIONAL INTERFACE:
AMERICAN-JAPANESE INTERACTION IN A
UNIVERSITY SETTING
BY

Patterson Armstrong Terry

Names of American students they knew well were obtained from
Japanese students in attendance at Michigan State University. The
population named was compared to the American MSU student body in
characteristics for which data were available; each person in a
sample was interviewed in some depth about his background, his exper-
ience with foreign students at MSU, his relationship with the Japanese
student he knew best, and the effects of interaction with.foreign
students on his own attitudes and plans. The research was designed
to explore the nature and context of a binational cross-cultural in-
terpersonal interaction situation.

The Americans named by the Japanese were distributed much more
similarly to the Japanese students than to the American MSU student
body on several characteristics, including gender, marital status,
academic level, and type of residence. The sample were disproportion-
ately from out-of-state, and predominantly urban in origin. Nearly a
fifth of the sample had been to Japan at some time.

1

Patterson Armstrong Terry

For the most part, relationships with foreign students in gen-
eral and the Japanese in particular began as a result of coincidental
academic or residential proximity. The sample showed little evidence
of having sought relationships with foreign students, or of expending
extra effort to maintain them.

The relationships of the sample with the Japanese were usually
quite informed, and were in most cases more than casual friendship but
less than very close. Few were group-oriented. The sample tended to
de-emphasize any differences between such relationships and American-
to-American relationships.

The Japanese seemed to hayg~§_§airly‘gghesiyg_n§tw -
tions among themselves, into which almost no Americans were well inte-
grated. The sample had no mutual awareness of themselves as "Americans
who know Japanese," and had no communication network or other social
structure among themselves.

Interaction with foreign students at MSU apparently had not
strongly affected the attitudes and plans of the sample. At the same
time, some effect was reported by almost every respondent.

Some conceptualizations are presented which could provide
meaningful comparisons among different binational interfaces. A

suggested expansion of the present research is outlined.

RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS A BINATIONAL INTERFACE:
AMERICAN-JAPANESE INTERACTION IN A

UNIVERSITY SETTING

BY

Patterson Armstrong Terry

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology

1969

{92:9 :12 3.,
C} '2 5'- (.7

Dedicated

To my parents, whose example taught me the

importance of understanding people.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My foremost debt is to Drs. John and Ruth Useem. Their
intellectual guidance was, of course, indispensible. Their con-
stant encouragement and seemingly boundless patience were equally
indispensible, and went far beyond any reasonable expectations.

The more than sixty Americans and Japanese around whom
this study centers deserve a formal word of gratitude. Almost
without exception they generously gave the time and information
this study required; and cooperation of that sort should never
be taken for granted.

To Wilma Hahn, who did the pre-research secretarial work,
go many thanks for her kind and frequent encouragement.

Finally, I want to thank my wife Linda, who watched many
plans disappear into the all-consuming project this research at
times became, and yet still put aside her own activities to help

prepare the written report.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACWOWLEWE MENTS O O O O O O O O O I O O 0 O O O O 9 0

LIST OF TABLES O C O O O O O C O O O 0 O O O O I O O 0

LIST OF FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter

I.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

INTRODUCTION . O C C C O O C O O O C O O C C O O

A.
B.

Background of the Study . . . . . . . . .
Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DEMOGRAPHIC AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION. . . . .

A.
B.

Characteristics of the Population . . . .

The Background of the Sample. . . . . . .

ATTITUDINAL RESPONSES . . . . . . . . . . . . .

OVERALL FOREIGN STUDENT CONTACT OF THE SAMPLE

THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIP. . . . . . .

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.

THE SOCIAL MATRIX OF THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIP

THE EFFECTS OF RESPONDENTS'

General Characteristics . . . . .'. . . .
Time-Structuring of the Relationship. . .
Intimacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Individuation, or Stereotypy of Response.
Strandedness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Overview of the American-Japanese Relationships

STUDENTS o o ' o c o o o o o o o o o o o c o o o

SUGGESTED FUTURE RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . .

iv

INTERACTION WITH FOREIGN

Page

iii

vi

ix

28
41
49
49
56
61
74
82
86

88

95

102

TABLE OF CONTENTS (cont.)
Page

LIST OF REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Appendices
A. DETAILS OF METHOD AND PROCEDURES . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

B 0 THE INERVIEW SCIIEDULE O O O O O C O O O O C O O 0 C O O O 118

Table

10.

LIST OF TABLES

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS,
THE POPULATION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE
STUDY BY GENDER.AND ACADEMIC LEVEL. . . . . . . . . . .

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS,
THE POPULATION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE
STUDY BY MARITAL STATUS AND TYPE OF LOCAL RESIDENCE . .

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS,
THE POPULATION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE
STUDY BY COLIJEGE ENROLLMENT o ' o o o o o o o o o o o o o

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN JAPANESE AND THE AMERICANS THEY NAMED

GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGINS OF THE SAMPLE AS COMPARED TO THE
WRICM MSU stENT BODY O O O O O O O O O C O O O O O

REGIONAL ORIGINS OF THE NON-MICHIGAN SAMPLE AS COMPARED
TO REGIONAL ORIGINS OF OUTfOF-STATE AMERICAN MSU
S TUDENTS O O O O I O O O I O O O I O O O O O O O O O O I

COMPARISON OF THE RURAL-URBAN DIMENSION IN THE BACKGROUNDS
OF THE SAMPLES FOR THE JAPANESE, INDIAN, AND EUROPEAN
STUDIES 0 O O O O O O C O O O O C O O O C O C C C C O C

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE LISTED BY RESPONDENTS AS IMPORTANT
IN MAKING THEM INTERESTED IN FOREIGN PEOPLE AND
FOREIGN COUNTRIES O O C Q C O O O O O O C O O O O O O C

THE PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS INTERESTED IN DIFFERENT
GROUPINGS OF COUNTRIES COMPARED TO THE PERCENTAGE MOST

PREFERRING AND LEAST PREFERRING TO ASSOCIATE WITH
PERSONS FROM COUNTRIES IN THOSE GROUPINGS . . . . . . .

vi

Page

10

11

12

14

20

21

22

25

26

3O

LIST OF TABLES (cont.)

Table

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.
21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

PREFERENCE FOR AREAS OF THE WORLD BY THE SAMPLES OF THE
EUROPEAN AND INDIAN STUDIES COMPARED TO INTEREST IN
THOSE AREAS AND PREFERENCE FOR ASSOCIATION WITH
PEOPLE FROM THE AREAS BY THE SAMPLE OF THE JAPANESE
STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RESPONDENTS' REACTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS OF THE REACTIONS
OF MOST AMERICANS TO RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN AMERICAN
STUDENTS AND FOREIGN STUDENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RESPONSIBILITIES FELT BY RESPONDENTS TOWARD FOREIGN
STUDENTS THAT WERE NOT FELT TOWARD OTHER AMERICANS. . .

NUMBER OF FOREIGN STUDENTS WITH WHOM RESPONDENTS WERE
ACQUAIN TE D O O C C C C O O O O O O O C O O O C 0 O O O 0

SUMMARY OF CONTACT WITH AND ATTITUDES TOWARD FOREIGN
S TUDENTS 0 0 O 0 O 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

CHANNELS OF FIRST CONTACT BETWEEN THE SAMPLE AND THE
FOREIm STIJDENTS THEY me. . Q 9 O O D O O C O O O O C

PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS WHO PARTICIPATE WITH FOREIGN
STUDENTS IN VARIOUS TYPES OF ACTIVITIES . . . . . . . .

SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE JAPANESE AND THE AMERICANS IN THE
POPULATION AND THE SAMPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH AMERICANS FIRST MET FOREIGN
S TUDENTS O O O O O O O O O O O Q C O O C C O C O O O O O

LENGTH OF TIME AMERICANS HAD KNOWN FOREIGN STUDENTS. . . .
RESPONDENTS' DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES . .

AMOUNT OF TIME RESPONDENTS ESTIMATED THEY SPENT WITH
THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES PER.WEEK. . . . . . . . . . .

FREQUENCIES OF TYPES OF TIME-STRUCTURES AMONG THE
WRICAN-JAPANESE RELAT IONSHIPS o o o o o o o o o o o 0

CONTENTS OF LEVELS OF INTIMACY FOR AMERICANS AND JAPANESE.
CONSISTENCY OF ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RELATIVE

EASE WITH WHICH AMERICANS AND JAPANESE CONFIDE. . . . .

vii

Page

31

35

37

42

43

45

47

50

52

53

55

56

60

67

69

LIST OF TABLES (cont.)

Table

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

PERCEIVED CLOSENESS OF THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIPS

LEVELS OF INTIMACY ATTAINED IN THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE
ELATIONSHIPS C O O C C O O C C C O O O C O C O I O I O

WAYS RESPONDENTS ACTED DIFFERENTLY TOWARD THEIR FOREIGN
ASSOCIATES THAN TOWARD OTHER AMERICANS. . . . . . . . .

ACTIVITIES RESPONDENTS WOULD AVOID WITH THEIR JAPANESE
MSOCIATES C O O C O C C C O O O O O O C O O O C O C O O

DID RESPONDENT THINK JAPANESE ASSOCIATE TREATED HIM
DIFFERENTLY FROM OTHER AMERICANS. . . . . . . . . . . .

HAD THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATE MADE OTHER PEOPLE AND/OR THE
“SPONDENT UNCOWORTABLE. C O O O C O O C O C O C O O 0

THE STEREOTYPY OF RESPONSE OF THE RESPONDENTS IN THEIR
RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES. . . . . .

ACTIVITIES ENGAGED IN WITH THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATE. . . . .

CATEGORIES OF STRANDEDNESS IN AMERICAN-JAPANESE
mIAATIONSHIPS O O O O O O O O Q C C C O O C O O O O O O

RESPONDENTS' CHANGES OF OUTLOOK ON THE COUNTRIES FROM
WHICH THEY HAD MT FOREIGN STUDENT‘S I C O O O O O O C O

RESPONDENTS' CHANGES IN ATTITUDE ABOUT AMERICA RESULTING
FROM CONTACT WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS. . . . . . . . . . .

EFFECTS OF INTERACTION WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS ON
RESPONDENTS' OPINION ON VARIOUS TOPICS. . . . . . . . .

RESPONDENTS' GAINS FROM THEIR INTERACTION WITH FOREIGN
STUDENTS C O O O O C O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

viii

Page

71

72

76

77

78

79

81

84

85

95

96

97

99

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page
1. Tabular Representation of Time-Structuring in Two-Person
Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2. Partial Representation of Intimacy Structuring . . . . . 63
3. Segmentalization in Intimacy Structures. . . . . . . . . 65
4. Relative Placement of Intimacy Level Boundaries Among
73

Japanese and Americans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study

What happens when people from different cultural heritages
come into contact? More specifically, what is the nature of the
interaction which develops from such contact? What relation is there
between the nature of the interaction and the cultural heritages of
those involved? Recorded observations relevant to such questions
began a few thousand years ago; systematic investigation of such
questions was unknown until relatively recently. In our global so-
ciety, where no major cultural stream (and probably no minor one,
either) flows completely in isolation, these questions and the search
for answers to them have become important.

Many ancient historical records contain accounts of cross-

cultural interaction.l These accounts are primarily of conflicting

relations, in which the individual interaction of persons from the

 

1Herodotus and the Old Testament history of the Hebrew nation
are among the better-known of such records. Apparently, however,
practically every ancient society for which significant literary
record remains left in the record some traces of relations with con-
temporaneous societies. See'W..H. McNeill, The Rise of the West
(Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1963), chapters 2-7.

opposing sides plays a minor part. There is less, though ample, evi-
dence of institutionalized non—conflictive relations as well;2 although
here again the actual person-to-person interaction is of minor impor-
tance. An examination of library shelves might indicate that even to-
day more is recorded of conflictive than of non-conflictive relations
between cultures; but it should be apparent, from the news media if
nowhere else, that the past century has witnessed an exponential in-
crease in the number, size, and scope of institutionalized networks

of peaceful cross-cultural interaction. The sheer number of people
involved in such networks both generates pressure and provides oppor-
tunity for investigation of the human interaction that builds and
maintains the networks.

Several of the cross-cultural pathways that have become insti-
tutionalized are directly or indirectly involved with education. The
modern large American university, as a result, has become fertile
ground for research into cross-cultural interaction: one finds in it
hundreds of foreign students from many different countries, thousands
of Americans from diverse backgrounds, and dozens of fledgling social
scientists scurrying about in search of interesting research topics.
The present study is one of a series that has taken advantage of
this fertile ground.

The primary focus of research on the foreign national in the

American university has been the foreign national himself. A

 

2Ibid. For a more concise and more abstracted overview of'

contact among ancient cultural areas, see A. L. Kroeber, The Nature
of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), chapter 47,
"The Ancient Oikoumene as a Historic Culture Aggregate."

good-sized, if not overwhelming, literature on the experiences, atti-
tudes, and afterthoughts of foreign scholars in the United States has
built up steadily over the past two or three decades.3 In contrast,
research on the Americans who become acquainted with these foreign
students has been practically nonexistent. Apparently the first study
of any size to examine Americans who interact with foreign students
was the one undertaken by Shaffer and Dowling at the University of
Indiana in 1964.4 Beginning in 1966, the research of which the
present study is a part has been carried on at Michigan State Univer-
sity to investigate the interaction between American students and
specific groups of foreign students.5

Although the MSU research was influenced by the Indiana study,
it was designed more to emphasize the interaction of American and
foreign students; the Indiana study focused primarily upon the charac-
teristics of the American students per £2; The research at MSU, more-

over, has been done in three successive years rather than all at once,

 

3A listing of some of this work is given in thezHandbook of
International Study (New York: Institute of International Education,
1958), bibliographical appendix, pp. 405-413.

4Robert H. Shaffer and Leo R. Dowling, "Foreign Students and
Their American Student Friends," Indiana University, Bloomington,
1966 (unpublished). The actual research on which the report is based
was carried out in the'spring of 1964. The portion of the research
which this investigator had at his disposal was Roberta Shearer, "A
Comparative Study of American Graduate Student Friends of Foreign
Students," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Education,
University of Indiana, 1965.

5Funds for this research have been supplied by the Institute
for International Studies in Education, College of Education, Michi-

gan State University.

as at Indiana. The trend in the MSU research has been toward increas-
ing emphasis on the nature of the interaction taking place.6

In studying the cross-cultural interaction between Indians and
Americans in India, Drs. John and Ruth Useem have elaborated the con-
cept they call the "third culture." Although in its most general ref-
erence the concept applies to any regularized pattern of cross-cultural

interaction,7 the Useems have applied it most fruitfully to the

 

6The MSU research has taken place in three "generations." In

1966, Howard Borck and Jerry Judy interviewed American students who
knew European students and Indian students, respectively. In 1967,
Barbara Kirk interviewed American students who knew Latin American
students, and Kaye Snyder and Rod Swonguer interviewed American stu-
dents who knew Nigerian students. Barbara Kirk deserves additional
mention for her work in coding responses and revising the interview
schedule. In 1968, at the same time this researcher was interviewing
the American students who knew Japanese, Susan Asbh was interviewing
the American students who knew Thais.

The results of the work by Kirk and Snyder and Swonguer have
not been printed. The results of the work by Asch, Borck, and Judy
have been printed (but not published) as Masters' theses, and will be
cited in this report for comparative purposes. The titles of the
theses are as follows:

Susan M. Asch, "The Friendship Roles of American Associates of
Thai Students on a Midwestern Campus: Implication for a New Bi-
national Third Culture," unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of
Sociology, Michigan State University, 1968.

Howard E. Borck, "Interaction of American Students with Western
European Students at a Mid-Western University," unpublished M.A.
thesis, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1966.

Jerry N. Judy, "Interaction of American Students with Indian
Students at a Midwestern University," unpublished M.A. thesis,
Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1967.

Since the work was done in succeeding years, the experiences
of each year's work were used to suggest improvements in the next
year's research. This has resulted in succeedingly more thorough
investigation, but also in a loss of comparability.

7In one place it is defined as "the cultural patterns created,
learned, and shared by the members of different societies who are per-
sonally involved in relating their societies, or sections thereof, to

binational third culture--one involving individuals from only two na-
tions; and it is in the context of binational cross-cultural contact.
that the term "third culture" is most meaningful. Specifically, the
Useems have_defined a binational third culture as "the patterns
generic to a community of men who stem from two different societies
and who regularly interact as they relate their respective societies,
or segments therefrom, within the physical setting of one of the
societies."8

The research reported here and the earlier studies in the
same project were conceived and guided by the Useems. The present
study was initially oriented around two general questions: (1) Does
the interaction between American students and Japanese students at
Michigan State University constitute a binational third culture; and

(2) if so, what is the nature of that third culture?

B. Method

This study was conceived and designed to be exploratory in
nature. A tighter design organized around a set of hypotheses might

have rendered more intelligible the bewildering maze of impressions

 

each other." John Useem and Ruth Useem, "The Interfaces of a Bina-
tional Third Culture: A Study of the American Community in India,"
Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January, 1967), p. 131.

81bid.

9A completely detailed version of methods and procedure is
contained in Appendix A.

which confronted the researcher in his work. It would at the same time
have required neglecting a large number of potentially fruitful areas
of investigation. Since studies of the host interactors in situations
of binational interaction are apparently non-existent outside the
Indiana and MSU research, the use of an exploratory design did not
entail ignoring a body of theory directly related to the phenomena
investigated.

An exploratory study does not provide a thorough examination
of any particular aspect of the matter being studied, and is therefore
liable to prove inadequate for the testing oprggt_hgg_hypotheses. The
tentative conclusions and suggested explanations throughout this report
are not presented as anything definite, but rather as pointers for
future research.

During the last half of the winter quarter, 1968, all twenty-
eight Japanese from the main islands10 in attendance at Michigan State

were reached by telephone, given a brief explanation of the research,

 

10Specificaly, Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Origin-
ally the decision to include only Japanese from the primary islands
was made to reduce the number of foreign students involved, and there-
by the size of the American population. The choice was fortuitous.
Pieces of information uncovered in the interviewing indicate that there
is practically no overlap between the friendship circles of the Japan-
ese and the Okinawans--and indeed, little interaction between the two
groups themselves. Three persons interviewed testified to a seeming
mutual avoidance of Okinawans and other Japanese. An interesting StUdY
which documents this avoidance in another context, and examines some
possible consequences is Kiydshi Ikeda,,Harry V. Ball, and Douglas S.
Yamanura, "Ethnocultural Factors in Schizophrenia among the Japanese
in Hawaii," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68, no. 2 (September,
1962), PP. 242-48.

 

and requested to help by providing the names of American MSU students
they knew well. Three of the Japanese said that they knew no Americans
well. The remaining twenty-five provided a list of eighty-five names,
of which eight names were duplications and three did not belong to
American MSU students. The seventy-four MSU students named constituted
the population for this study. From the population of seventy-four,

a stratified random sample of thirty—six was selected.11 Stratifica-
tion was by sex, marital status, and type of local residence.

During spring term, 1968, each student in the sample was con-
tacted by telephone to arrange an interview appointment. Most of the
interviewing was completed during spring term, but a few of the inter-
views were done during the summer. The interviews ranged in length
from one-and-one-half to seven—and-one-half hours, varying directly
as the age and garrulity of the respondents, and as their amount of
experience with foreign students.: Most of the interviews took only
a single session, and all but four were done in complete privacy.

The interview was arranged in four sections which concerned,
in order, the background of the respondent, his experience with foreign
students in general at MSU, his relationship with the one Japanese MSU
student he knew best, and his estimate of changes brought about by his
relationships with foreign students. The interview schedule was essen-

tially the same as that used in the two earlier generations of the MSU

 

11At any place where the word "population" appears in this
study, it will refer to the seventy-four American MSU students named
by the Japanese. Similarly, the use of the word "sample" will always
be in reference to the stratified sample of thirty-six selected from

the population.

project. Some questions were added to the third section of the inter-
view to probe more fully into the group context of the American—Japanese
interaction. Following the protesting of the schedule, the wording of
some of the questions and the ordering of a few questions were altered

to suit the researcher's purposes best.

Chapter Two

DEMOGRAPHIC AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
A. Characteristics of the Population

The population of the study and the MSU student body were com-
pared on several variables. It was obvious that the two groups were
not similarly distributed. The most convenient explanation for the
differences is that the Japanese were also different from the MSU
student body, and that they knew best Americans similar to themselves.
In order to test this explanation, the MSU student body, the Japanese
MSU students, and the population of the study were compared on each
variable.12 The results are shown in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The sample
of the study is also analyzed there to demonstrate how representative
it was of the population.

Table 1 compares the four groups by gender and academic level.
From Table l we can see that the population of the study and the Jap-
anese had larger percentages of both male and female graduate students,
and smaller percentages of both male and female undergraduate students,

than did the MSU student body. Notice that in every possible

 

12The data on the population were obtained from the winter

term student directory of the MSU switchboard. The data on the Jap-
anese were obtained from the winter term records of the Foreign Stu-
dent Office. Sources of data on the MSU student body are indicated
in the respective tables.

10

comparison, the proportion of the population was closer to the propor-
tion of the Japanese, and vice versa, than either was to the proportion
of the MSU student body. This supports the suggestion that the Japa—

nese most often got to know American students who were like themselves.

TABLE 1

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS, THE POPULA-
TION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE STUDY BY GENDER
AND ACADEMIC LEVEL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSU student Japanese Study Study
body13 population sample
(N = 28) (N = 74) (N = 36)
Males
Under-
graduates 44% 28.5% 30% 25%
Graduates 15% 54% 43% 42%
Subtotals 59% 82.5% 73% 67%
Females
Under-
graduates 36% 3.5% 16% 19%
Graduates 5% 14% 11% 14%
Subtotals 41% 17.5% 27% 33%
Totals 100% 100% 100% 100%

 

 

13The data in this table for the MSU student body are based on
the MSU Enrollment Report for Winter Term, 1968.

11

TABLE 2

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS, THE
POPULATION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE STUDY BY MARITAL
STATUS AND TYPE OF LOCAL RESIDENCE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=—
MSU student Japanese Study Study
bodyl4 population sample
(N = 28) (N = 74) (N = 36)
Single
students
Under-
graduate
dormitory 47% 14% 23% 22%
Graduate
dormitory 3% 35.5% 27% 28%
Off-campus 32.5% 25% 26% 25%
Subtotals 82.5% 74.5% 76% 75%
Married
students
University
married
housing 6% 21.5% 8% 8%
Off-campus 11.5% 4% 16% 17%
Subtotals 17.5% 25.5% 24% 25%
Totals 100% 100% ' 100% 100%
14

Residential data for the MSU student body for winter term,
1968, are not available. Therefore, the Housing Report for Spring term,
1968, by the Ofijampus Housing Office, is used as the source of data.
There are usually no differences in the student body proportions between
winter and spring terms.

12

TABLE 3

COMPARISON OF THE MSU STUDENT BODY, MSU JAPANESE STUDENTS, THE
POPULATION OF THE STUDY, AND THE SAMPLE OF THE STUDY BY COLLEGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENROLLMENT
MSU Japanese Study Study
College student population sample
bodyls (N = 28) (N = 74) (N = 36)
Education 15% 11% 4% 5.5%
Social Science 14% 7% 20% 27.5%
Natural Science 12% 3.5% 9% 5.5%
Arts and Letters 11% 3.5% 18% 22%
Business 11% 35.5% 15% 14%
No Preference 10% 11% 4% 3%
Agriculture 7% 11% 8% 3%
Engineering 6% 3.5% 3% 0%
Communication Arts 5% 14% 12% 11%
Home Economics 4% 0% 0% 0%
kBesidential Colleges* 3% 0% 4% 3%
Veterinary Medicine 2% 0% 3% 5.5%
Human Medicine -0% 0% 0% 0%
Totals 100% 100% 100% 100%

 

 

 

*There are three: James Madison College, Justin Morrill College, and
Lyman Briggs College.

15The data in this table for the MSU student body are based on
the MSU Enrollment Report for Winter Term, 1968.

 

13

In Table 2 the comparison is by marital status and type of
local residence. Again we notice a general tendency for the popula-
tion of the study and the Japanese to be distributed more nearly like
each other than either was like the MSU student body. Both had a
somewhat smaller percentage Single, and a correspondingly larger per-
centage married, than did the MSU student body. Furthermore, the dis-
tributions of the population and the Japanese tended to be concen-
trated more in the graduate residence hall and considerably less in
the undergraduate dormitories than was true for the MSU student body.
On the other hand, among married students the Japanese differed from
both the student body and the study population in that they were
heavily concentrated in UniverSity married housing rather than off
campus.

Table 3 compares the four groups by percentages enrolled in
the various colleges of the University. There did not appear to be
any tendency for any two of the distributions (other than those of the
sample and the population) to resemble each other.

Tables 1 and 2 together provide limited support for the con-
clusion that the Japanese tended to know well Americans who were like
theme-rather than a random assortment. On the other hand, Tables 2
and 3 together indicate that the similarity was not extremely broad.
Comparisons of each Japanese with the Americans he named provide more
specific data. In Table 4 are shown the categories of similarities,
and the number and percentage of namings which demonstrated those

SinLilarities, between the Japanese and the Americans they named.

14

TABLE 4

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN JAPANESE AND THE AMERICANS THEY NAMED

 

 

Number and percentage
Type of similarity of namings in which this
similarity occurred*

 

 

Gender 69 (84%)
Marital status 57 (70%)
Academic level 56 (68%)
Gender 993 marital status 52 (63%)
Gender §£d_academic level 52 (63%)
Marital status 32d academic level 42 (51%)

Gender and marital status

 

 

 

and academic level 40 (49%)
Same type of local residence 43 (52%)
Same college (out of 15 colleges) 32 (39%)
Same major (out of 73 majors) 21 (26%)
*N = 82

We can see that college and major are better predictors than Table 3
indicates.

Certainly the Americans named by the Japanese are not a random
collection of MSU students; and equally certainly, in some respects
they strongly resemble the Japanese students. On the basis of the in-
fOrmation given so far, little more can be said. When the relation-

Ships between Americans and Japanese are examined more thoroughly in

15

later chapters, the significance of the similarities will be discussed

further.

B. The Background of the Sample

What kinds of American MSU students do the Japanese at MSU
come to know well? Several questions were asked of the sample in
order to answer this question more fully than the data in the pre-
ceding section could. If the Americans in the sample differed from
the American MSU student body in certain ways, and if we assume the
differences were not due to chance, then we can explain these dif-
ferences in any or all of four ways:

(1) such differences are the result of attraction between
the Japanese and Americans With particular character-
istics (pOSitive selection factors);

(2) the differences are the result of repulsion between
the Japanese and Americans with particular character-
istics (negative selection factors);

(3) the differences are the result of significant direct
relationships between particular characteristics and
positive selection factors, or of significant inverse
relationships between particular characteristics and
negative selection factors;

(4) the differences directly affect proximity to the Jap-
anese (access factors), or are characteristics highly
related to access factors.

We are not adequately prepared to deal with explanations of

'Ule third type. Explanations of the founth type can be applied to

daiza such as that in the preceding section; the Japanese are more

16

likely to meet Americans of the same gender, academic level, and type
of residence, for example. To what extent similarity on such varia-
bles constitutes a positive selection factor our data are not able to
pindicate.

Age is a characteristic closely and directly related to an
access factor—~academic level; we would therefore expect the average
age of our sample to have exceeded the average age of the MSU student
body. Although we do not know the average age of the MSU student
body, we do know from Table 1 that 80% were undergraduates; and we
can estimate that the median age was about 21. This was somewhat
less than the median age for the sample-~23. The range of ages for
the sample was 18 to 37.

The Americans who knew Japanese apparently were more similar
in age to Americans who knew Europeans than to Americans who knew
Indians. The range in the European study was 19 to "over thirty,"
with a median age of 23. The sample of the Indian study ranged from
20 to "over thirty," but the median was 24.5.16 In the Thai study
the range was from 18 to 52. The median is not given, but the sample
is described as mostly "seniors or first or second year graduate
students, in their early twenties."17 In all three studies the age

of respondents was likely to be greater than the median age of the

MSU student body.

 

16The data from the Indian and European studies are in Judy,

op. cit., p. 5.

l7Asch, op. cit., p. 37.

17

A potential access factor is the length of time a respondent
had been at MSU, since we might predict that a longer time at MSU
would increase the chances of contact with a Japanese. However, the
median number of years at MSU was only two, and one-third had been at
MSU for only one year. This may reflect the predominance of graduate
students in the sample, of whom 60% were Master's candidates; but it
eliminates length of time at MSU as an access factor.

Biographical characteristics would be less likely to be
access factors than to be positive and negative selection factors.
Unfortunately, biographical data comparable to that obtained for the
sample were not in most cases available for the MSU student body.
Therefore, the description of the sample in most respects will be
straightforward without attempts to assess conceivable positive or
negative selection.

The occupations of the fathers of the sample fall readily
into four classifications: executive-professional, proprietor,
skilled, and unskilled or semi-skilled.18 Exactly half the sample
have fathers with executive-professional occupations, and a fourth
have fathers who are proprietors. In other words, only one-fourth
of the sample have fathers who would be considered in the "working

class." This finding is in sharp distinction to that of the Thai

f

18"Executive-professional" was applied to anyone whose occu-
pation would require professional training or education beyond the
high school level (and one man who inherited his wealth). "Pro-
prietor" refers to anyone owning or managing a business of small size.
"Skilled" applies to anyone whose occupation would require little
euiucation but would require training (such as painter, ironworker).

18

study; Americans who knew Thais are described as being mostly working
class or lower-middle class in origin.19

The mothers of twenty-three (64%) of the sample were working
at the time of the interviewing. Thirty-three (92%) of the mothers
have worked at some time in their lives. One—third of the mothers
have at some time worked as teachers or at some other job requiring
college or other professional training.

Half the respondents described the typical income or job of
persons living in the neighborhood they had grown up in. These de-
scriptions generally reflected the occupations of the fathers. No
respondent described his neighborhood as being working class or lower
class. Both respondents who reported they lumi lived mostly around
factory workers were careful to describe their neighborhoods as
"lower-middle class."

The national origins of the respondents' families center
heavily around Western Europe (specifically: Germany, Britain, the
Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, and Italy). Twenty-
eight (78%) of the sample reported ancestry from at-Ieast one West
European nation. Of these, twenty reported g§1y_West European an-
cestry. Ten (32%) Of the respondents revealed some East European
ancestry (specifically: Russia, Poland, and Lithuania). Five of
these listed ggly East European ancestry. There were two Japanese-
Americans and one Afro-American in the sample. Three persons re—

ported some North American Indian ancestry (all three of whom also

reported French ancestry).

19Asch, op. cit., p. 36.

19

Not all respondents indicated the recency of immigration of
ancestors. Of the twenty-four who did, eighteen listed immigrant
grandparents, two listed immigrant parents, and two listed immigrant
great-grandparents. Two respondents reported ancestry in this country
back to the Revolutionary War. None of the respondents was born out-
side the United States and its possessions, although one was born in
Hawaii before it became a state.

Twenty respondents described the ethnic variety of the neigh-
borhood in which they grew up. Fourteen of these indicated there was
some variety of ethnic stock in the neighborhood, and six that there
was none. The sample were asked if their background had any effect
upon their interest in foreign people. The majority (58%) said it had
not. Even among those who reported some effect, about half explicitly
mentioned only their parents' attitude or specific advantages their
fathers' or mothers' occupations afforded them to meet foreign na-
tionals. Only four mentioned the nature of their neighborhood as
important, and only three their ancestry. The small number who listed
their ancestry as important contrasts with the larger proportion of
Americans who knew Europeans and Indians who listed it as important.
In the samples of those studies, 33% and 30% respectively, asserted
that their ethnic background had an important influence on their in-
terest in foreign people.20

The sample showed a marked discrepancy from the MSU student

body with respect to geographical origin. First of all, as Table 5

 

20Judy, 0p. cit., p. 8.

20

shows, the in-state to out—of—state ratios were quite different.
The graduate ratio obviously accounted for most of the variance,
but the undergraduates in the sample also showed a greater likeli-

hood to have come from out-of-state.

TABLE 5

ORIGINS OF THE SAMPLE AS COMPARED TO THE AMERICAN
MSU STUDENT BODY

 

 

 

 

 

Total Graduates Undergraduates
Student Sample Student Sample Student Sample
body21 (N=36) body (N=20) body (N=16)
In-state 81% 42% 62% .20% 85% 69%
Out-of
state 19% 58% 38% 80% 15% 31%
Totals 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

 

 

 

 

Table 6 compares the proportions of the sample who had spent
at least half their lives in the various regions of the country with
the proportions of the MSU student body who came from these same re-
gions. Students from Michigan are omitted from the analysis in order

to make the percentages for the student body meaningful.22

 

21The data for the student body in this table were obtained
from the MSU geographical list for‘Winter term, 1968.

22The two distributions are not absolutely comparable, since
three of the sample who spent most of their lives in another region
became Michigan residents before attending MSU. Thus, the number of
the sample who are counted in Table 6 as non-Michigan is larger than
the number counted as out-of-state in Table 5.

 

21

TABLE 6

REGIONAL ORIGINS OF THE NON-MICHIGAN SAMPLE AS COMPARED TO
REGIONAL ORIGINS OF OUT-OF-STATE AMERICAN MSU STUDENTSZ3

 

 

 

 

East South Midwest Plains Southwest West Totals
Sample,
non-Michigan 38% 0% 29% 4% 4% 25% 100%
(N = 24)
MSU Out-
of-state 35% 9.5% 41.5% 3% 4% 6.5% 99.5%
students

 

 

 

 

Tables 5 and 6 taken together indicate fairly strongly that
students from Michigan in particular and the Midwest in general were
less likely than all other students to know a Japanese. They suggest
also that students from the South were less likely than all other
American students, and that students from the West were more likely
than all other American students, to know Japanese students.

The places the respondents had lived were categorized by size-
type. Six different population sizes are distinguished, and the

largest three are subdivided into urban and suburban.24 Thirty-one of

 

23States composing the various regions-are as follows: EAST--
Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachu-
setts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
vermont, and West Virginia; SOUTH--A1abama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennes-
see, and Virginia; MIDWEST--Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Mis-
souri, Ohio, Wisconsin; PLAINS--Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Da-
kota, South Dakota, and Wyoming; SOUTHWEST--Arizona, Colorado, Nevada,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah; WEST--A1aska, California, Hawaii,
Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

24The size-types, and the numbers of respondents from each,
are as follows: less than 2,000--l; 2,000 to 10,000--4; 10,000 to

22

the sample had lived in a single size-type for more than half of their
lives (although not always in the same place). A rough estimate of
the rural-urban dimension.of the backgrounds of the sample is thus
possible. Table 7 compares the origins of the sample in this study

with the samples in the Indian and European studies on the rural-urban

dimension.

TABLE 7

COMPARISON OF THE RURAL-URBAN DIMENSION IN THE BACKGROUNDS OF THE
SAMPLES FOR THE JAPANESE, INDIAN, AND EUROPEAN STUDIES

 

W I
Americans who Americans who Americans who
Background knew Japanese knew Indians knew EurOpeans
(N = 36) (N = 30) (N = 30)
Rural 11% 30% 20%
Suburban 36% 17% 33%
Urban 53% 53% 47%

 

 

 

 

Although there may not be strict comparability, it would appear
that the Americans who knew Indians were less heavily weighted toward
the urban end of the dimension than the Americans who knew Europeans
and the Americans who knew Japanese; and that the Americans who knew

Japanese were the most predominantly urban group.

100,000--5; 100,000 to 250,000 urban--l, suburban--1; 250,000 to
1,000,000 urban--5, suburban--4; more than 1,000,000 urban--5, subur—
ban--6; no single size-type--5. No attempt was made to separate in-
corporated places from their metropolitan area. For example, gll_
places in the New York City-Newark metropolitan area were considered
as being in the largest population-size category. Individual cases
were then labeled "urban" or "suburban" from the description of the

neighborhood given by the respondent.
25Data for the Indian and European studies are in Judy, pp,
cit:., p. 6.

23

The urban origins of the sample in this study become more evi-
dent when we examine the largest and smallest places each respondent
had lived in. With only one exception, every respondent lived at least
once in a place of larger than 10,000 population before coming to MSU.
Twenty-seven (75%) had lived at some time in their lives in a metropol-
itan area with a population greater than 250,000. Eighteen (50%) had
lived at some time in a metropolitan area with a population greater
than 1,000,000. Although fourteen (39%) had lived in a place of under
10,000 population, only four of these had ever lived in a place of under
2,000 population. Not a single respondent's father was a farmer, and
only one of the fathers had been in a farm-connected occupation (he sold
farm machinery before his death).

Since the respondents listed all the places they had ever lived,
it is possible to assess the degree of mobility of each respondent and
the sample in general. The total number of moves between places ranged
from one for seven respondents who lived in the same town until they
came to MSU to eleven for one respondent. The median number of moves
was three (mean = 3.75). When the moves are analyzed according to
whether they occurred before or after the respondent left home, we find
that the median number of moves respondents made with their parents was
one (mean = 1.5), and that the median number of moves made since leav-
ing home was one (mean = 1.25). (The remaining move out of the total
mean was the move away from home.)

The extent of geographical mobility since the age of four was
measured both as the number of different geographical regions the

sample had lived in and the number of different states the sample had

24

lived in. The mean number of states lived in was 2.6, and the mean
number of geographical regions was 2.1. That is to say, almost every
time one of the respondents changed states, he also changed geograph-
ical regions.26

As already indicated, most of the sample did not think their
ancestral or neighborhood backgrounds were important in increasing
their interest in foreign peoples. The extent to which the sample
thought various other influences were important is shown in Table 8.

The primary influences can be grouped into three main cate-
gories: direct experiences (either with a foreign country or people
who came from one); contact with Americans who have been to a foreign
country; and learning or exposure through school or information
media. In naming what they felt had been the most important influ—
ence making them interested in foreign people or countries, twelve
respondents (33%) listed direct contact, nine (25%) listed exposure
through school or media, and six (17%) listed contact with persons
who had traveled abroad. (The remainder named either no single most

important contact, or else independent interests or family atmosphere.)

 

6In coding data on mobility, the following conventions were
used: A move within the same incorporated place was not counted.
Moves back and forth between the same towns were counted once each
way. Each foreign country was counted as a separate state, but all
foreign experience together counted as only one geographic region.
Military experience was counted as one move if all within the United
States, or as two moves if partly in a foreign country. One state
and one geographic region were added for military experience in the
U.S., and another for military experience in foreign countries. A
place not lived in for at least nine months was not counted.

25

TABLE 8

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE LISTED BY RESPONDENTS AS IMPORTANT IN MAKING THEM
INTERESTED IN FOREIGN PEOPLE AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

 

 

 

 

Percentage of
. respondents who
Source of influence listed this
influence
(N = 36)
Newspapers, magazines, books,
radio, television, movies 61%
Personal contact with foreign nationals
in the United States 56%
Experience in a foreign country 56%
Persons not in the respondent's family
who talked about foreign experiences 53%
School projects or extracurricular
activities (prior to high school) 50%
Persons in the respondent's family
who talked about foreign experiences 47%
Independent interests 28%
Church-related activities 17%
Parents' attitudes 11%
Neighborhood background 11%
Work-related activities 11%
Ancestry , 8%

 

 

 

26

The foreign experience of the sample was extensive overall.
All but four (89%) had been out of the country. The categories of
experience are outlined in Table 9, and the percentage of respondents

who had had that level of experience are shown.

TABLE 9

SUMMARY OF THE FOREIGN EXPERIENCE OF THE SAMPLE

 

 

Percentage of
respondents in
that category

Category
(highest level of experience)

 

Never left the United States 11%
Canada only, for two weeks or less 22%
Vacationing, sight-seeing, or visiting
some country other than Canada for

two weeks or less 28%

Vacationing or visiting in some country
for more than two weeks 8%

Living, studying, or being stationed
in some country for two months or more 31%

 

 

L L g._ 4

 

 

One third of the sample had been to a foreign country other
than Mexico or Canada, which is the same proportion as in the Indian
and European studies.27 Nine (25%) of the sample might be considered
"seasoned travelers," having been in three or more foreign countries.

Although none of the respondents in categories two and three

had been to Japan, seven of the respondents in category four had.

 

27 .
Judy, op. oit., p. 7.

27

Two of these lived there with their parents, one was a foreign exchange
student, one was visiting a friend, and three were stationed in the
Orient28 during their military serVice.29 Although there is no way

to guess how traveled the average MSU student was, it is doubtful

that seven out of every thirty-six (or better than 19%) of them had
been to Japan.

Overall, it would appear that there are some positive and
negative selection factors at work in the backgrounds of the sample
and the MSU student body. The sample seem to be more urban and more
out-of—state and more non—Midwest, and more traveled.In Japan, if not
the world in general. Given two people with equal access to a Japa—
nese, we would predict that the person who has been to Japan would be
more likely to get to know the Japanese; that the person from the
rural area would be less likely; that the person from the South would
be less likely; and that the person from the Midwest would be less

likely.

 

8The term "Orient" will be used several times in this paper.
It will refer specifically to the following countries: Japan, North
and South Korea, mainland and Nationalist China, and Thailand. Al-
though the Thais may not resemble the others culturally as much as
they resemble each other, their reserved demeanor should strike the
naive Westerner as similar to that of the other nationalities.

9Six respondents had served in the military. Two of these
never left the United States. Three served in the Orient, and one in
Germany.

Chapter Three

ATTITUDINAL RESPONSES

Dispersed throughout the interview were several questions
which elicited the respondents' attitudes toward various things.
Although the answers to these questions provide an indirect profile
of the past experience of respondents with foreign people, their
more straightforward function is to outline the psychological atmos—
phere in which relationships with the Japanese sprang up and existed.

Three sets of questions concerned attitudes toward different
countries and nationalities. The first set asked what countries the
respondents were especially interested in, and when and why they
became interested; the second asked With which nationalities they
would most prefer to associate if given their choice, and why; and
the third, with which nationalities they would least prefer to asso—
ciate if given their choice, and why. The answers to the primary
questions are summarized in Table 10.

If we compare the interest in various regions with the posi-

l i 3 O I f a . \
tive and negative preferences for assoc1ation With nationalities,

 

30The term "negative preference"-is used because out of the

twenty-four respondents who listed least preferred nationalities,
nineteen made it clear the nationalities they least preferred to
associate with were negative choices, not merely neutral choices.

28

29

we see that the number of respondents interested in a particular area
is directly related to the number of persons showing a strong positive
preference for association with people from that area. There is a
less uniform relationship between the number of respondents indicating
interest in an area and the number with negative preferences for na-
tionalities from that area.

To what extent are attitudes toward a country connected to
attitudes toward people from that country? Table 10 suggests that
the two are fairly closely connected; since interest is most common
when positive preferences most outweigh negative preferences, and
least common when the reverse is true. There are several questions
and answers which deal more directly with the connection, however.

When respondents indicated they were interested in one or more
countries, they were asked to explain their interest. More than half
of the respondents listed as a reason for their interest in a country
the fact that they had met someone from there. Again, when giving
positive or negative preferences for associating with particular na-
tionalities, respondents were asked to explain their preferences. Of
those who listed such preferences, about half gave reasons not con-
nected to past association with these nationalities, but rather to
attributes of their countries. There is a tendency, then, but not
an overwhelming one, for the sample to link their feelings about a
country closely with their feelings about the people from it, and

vice versa.

30

TABLE 10

THE PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS INTERESTED IN DIFFERENT GROUPINGS OF
COUNTRIES COMPARED TO THE PERCENTAGE MOST PREFERRING AND LEAST
PREFERRING TO ASSOCIATE WITH PERSONS FROM COUNTRIES IN THOSE GROUPINGS

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of
‘ respondents ex- respondents pre- respondents pre-
Grouping : pressing interest ferring most to ferring least to
of 5 in one or more associate with associate with
countries I countries in this one or more na- one or more na-
grouping 31 tionality groups tionality groups
a (N = 36) in this grouping in this grouping
Oriental 2 64% 53% 14%
I
European* i 50% 36% 6%
I
Latin American' 14% 17% 6%
Communist** I 17% 11% 11%
Black African I 8% 8% 6%
Arab 3% 6% 22%
India-Pakistan? 8% 3% 22%
32
None 6% 25% 28%
J.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Eastern European nations, except for Russia, are included in this
grouping.

**No respondent indicated an interest in Communist nations in general--
only in particular ones. This grouping overlaps the European and
Oriental groupings.

 

1Since N always equals 36 in analyses of the full sample, N
will not be listed beyond this point except in tables using subsamples
or comparing this sample to others.

2Since respondents were permitted to name any number of coun-
tries or groupings in answer to each question, and since some groupings
overlap, there are no mutually exclusive categories, except "None" and
the remainder of the categories taken together.

31

Data in the Indian and European studies were obtained to per-
mit an ordering of the samples' preferences for various areas of the
world. Although these preferences are not precisely comparable either
to expressed interest in a country or to preference in association,

a comparison with both is enlightening. Table 11 shows the comparison.

TABLE 11

PREFERENCE FOR AREAS OF THE WORLD BY THE SAMPLES OF THE EUROPEAN AND

INDIAN STUDIES AS COMPARED TO INTEREST IN THE AREAS AND PREFERENCE
FOR ASSOCIATION WITH PEOPLE FROM THOSE AREAS BY THE SAMPLE OF THE

JAPANESE STUDY33

 

 

 

Preference rank
for association

Preference rank
for the area by

Expressed interest
rank by the Japa-

 

 

Areas of with nationali- the Indian and nese study sample
the world ties from this European study
area by the samples**
Japanese study
sample*
Europe 2 l 2
India-Pakistan 6 2 4.5
Orient l 3 1
Latin America 3 4 3
Black Africa 4 5 4.5
Middle East 5 6 6

 

 

 

 

*Obtained by subtracting column three from column two in Table 10 and
ranking the resulting numbers.

**The Indian and European study samples were identical in their prefer-

ence rankings.

 

33

Data for the Indian and European studies are in Borck, 9p,

cit., p. 8.

 

32

The only area that seems drastically to change rankings from
the Indian and European study samples to the Japanese study sample is
the India-Pakistan area. It is not surprising that the Americans in
the Indian study sample Should rank the India-Pakistan area high. It
is surprising that the Americans in the European study al§g_ranked it
high, when the Americans in the Japanese study sample ranked it last.
A clue to a possible explanation comes from the respondents' reactions
to American society in the various studies.

In the present study, the respondents were, Without exception,
individuals strongly imprinted with the American stamp. There were
only five of them who evidenced rejection of or alienation from Ameri-
can society in general; and of these five, only one made invidious
comparisons between other countries and the United States. The other
four were obviously out of the mainstream of American society, but
had ties to a recognized minor segment of it.

The thirty-one respondents who were most strongly identified
with American society fell rather neatly into two groups. Some of
them (better than half the sample) were fairly naive patriots, some
of them concerned about societal ills, but all evidencing belief in
the universal rightness and applicability of "The American Way."
About a fourth of the sample, however, clearly delineated the failings
they saw in American society, distinguished between portions of the
American value matrix that they could and could not agree with, and
showed a high degree of sophistication about the world and the place
of the United States in the world--and still were highly identified

with America as a nation.

33

Overall, then, we did not have in the sample dissident, rebel-
lious xenophiles, but a set of loyal Americans, many of whom were con-
cerned about their country (eleven voiced outright pessimism about its
immediate future), but only one of whom felt more strongly attracted
to some other place. This composite is similar to those for the
sample of the Indian study34 and the sample of the Thai study,35 both
of which showed a high degree of identification with America, and con-
tained only a very few alienated from it. It contrasts sharply with
the sample of the European study, of which fewer than half described
themselves as very much a part of American society.36

It is possible that the high preference for the India-Pakistan
area relative to the Orient by the sample of the European study de-
rived from the alienation of so many of that sample from American so-
ciety. There are no data which directly support the suggestion; but
these individuals may have perceived India--non-aligned and less
closely associated with the United States-~as less "contaminated," or
more culturally and socially different from the United States than the
Orient--which bears such a strong imprint of American economic and
military influence.

To ascertain the psychological atmosphere which surrounded
relationships between the American sample and foreign students in
general, respondents were asked how they thought most Americans feel

about friendships, dating, and romantic attachments between American

 

35 .
34Judy, op. cit., p. 54. Asch, Op. c1t., pp. 36-7.

36Borck, op. cit., p. 37.

34

and foreign students; and how they themselves felt about each of these
types of relationships. Because the questions were open-ended, the
answers hardly fit into tidy categories; and the fact that the respon-
dents were encouraged to state exceptions to generalizations further
complicates the pattern of the answers. The most useful and accurate
categorization is by level of negativity--that is, to how many cate—
gories of nationalities was reaction negative? The results are shown
in Table 12.

Table 12 makes evident two things. First, the expressed
opinions of the sample were much more permissive with respect to all
types of relationships between foreign students and American students,
than were the attitudes they attributed to Americans in general.
Secondly, Americans in general were perceived by the sample as quite
unfavorably disposed toward any but same-gender relationships across
racial lines. Many respondents included in their reply the statement
that most people would be much more negative if their own children
were the American students involved. Not a single respondent por-
trayed "most Americans" as less restrictive than himself on the issue.

To follow up these questions, respondents were asked if they
personally would marry (or would have married) a foreign national.

The answer distribution was almost identical to the distribution of
respondents' answers in column three of Table 12. The respondents
were at least consistent in their overt opinions.

In a somewhat more subtle approach to attitudes, respondents
were asked if foreign students made more demands on them than Ameri-

cans. Twenty respondents (56%) said they did not; of these, eight

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36

specifically stated that foreign students made Eggg£_demands than
Americans. Of the remaining sixteen, four referred to specific in-
cidents or relationships from which they did not try to generalize;
two carefully explained that although foreign students sometimes
appeared more demanding, this was actually a result of differences
in cultural expectations and that it thus varied from one foreign
group to the next. Only ten respondents (or only 28%) then, stated
as a generalization that foreign students are more demanding than
Americans. Out of these ten, only five showed an obvious displeasure
over the fact; the other five off-handedly mentioned as demanding
behavior of foreign students such things as asking to be corrected
in their English, or asking questions about how to do things in this
country. A rather small 14% were all that felt "put upon" in their
relations with foreign students.

Obversely, the respondents were asked what responsibilities
they felt toward foreign students that they did not feel toward Amer-
icans. (They were provided a list of responsibilities and asked to
indicate which applied to them.) The number of respondents who men-
tioned each particular responsibility is shown in Table 13, which
compares frequencies for this sample with those in the Indian and
European studies. Table 13 indicates that in general the Americans
in the Japanese study were less likely to feel responsibilities to-
ward foreign students than were those in the Indian and European

studies.

37

TABLE 13

RESPONSIBILITIES FELT BY RESPONDENTS TOWARD FOREIGN STUDENTS THAT
WERE NOT FELT TOWARD OTHER AMERICANS

 

 

 

Percentage who felt these responsibilities
Responsibilities
Sample of the Sample of the Sample of the
Indian study37 Japanese study European study37
(N = 30) (N = 36) (N = 30)
Explain English
language usage 63% 72% 80%
Explain American
customs 73% 72% 83%
Be friendly (not asked) 36% (not asked)
Help in per-
sonal matters 67% 25% 47%
Be a courteous
host 60% 25% 47%
Introduce them
to other
Americans 40% 19% 43%
Help them with
their studies (not asked) 19% (not asked)

 

 

 

We can generalize and say that the sample tended to visualize
their relationships with foreign students as not too much different
from relationships with Americans. Certain obvious differences, such
as language difficulties and unfamiliarity with American ways were

expected in the foreign student and reacted to; but overall it would

 

37The data for the Indian and EurOpean studies are in Borck,

op. cit., p. 26.

 

38

appear that the American expected his relationship with a foreign
student to be just another acquaintanceship or friendship.

Respondents were asked how typical they thought their best-
known Japanese associate was of Japanese students. As if to demon-
strate the proverbial American tendency to answer a question Oflt of
ignorance if necessary, twenty-eight (78%) gave an answer, usually
based on no more than a total of three Japanese known. Some of the
respondents even prefaced their answer with "Well, I only know two,
but, . . . ." Fifteen respondents thought their friends were atypi—
cal, nine that they were typical, and four that they were mostly
typical with a few atypical traits.

Two questions in the original interview schedule asked the
respondent to estimate, on a one-to-five scale, how much alike he
thought Japanese students were as a group and then how much he thought
American students were alike as a group. After a quarter of the in-
terviews had been completed, and produced no useful answers to these
questions, they were combined into a single one: "Do you think Jap-
anese students as a group are more or less alike than American stu-
dents?" Nine (seven of whom answered "I don't know" to the typicality
question) said they didn't know or couldn't say. Thirteen thought
the Japanese are more homogeneous, and five thought the two groups
are equally heterogeneous. With a few exceptions, the respondents
were again answering on the basis of little first-hand knowledge
about the Japanese. In the researcher's opinion, the respondents

who said their Japanese associates were atypical were comparing them

39

not to a number of other Japanese, but to a rather stereotyped mass
called "the Japanese," which was perceived as being relatively uni-
form throughout.

Although there were no comparable data for the MSU student
body to test this assertion, it is probable that the attitudes of
the sample in general do not serve as positive selection factors;
there is not in the attitudes investigated evidence that the sample
as a whole tended to be xenophilic, or especially solicitous of their
foreign student friends. On the other hand, it is possible that
greater prevalence of certain attitudes in the student body than in
the sample could serve as negative selection factors: a more restric-
tive attitude about foreign student friendships, dating, or marriage;
or a larger number of negative preferences of nationalities to asso-
ciate with.

It had been the researcher's assumption that foreign exper-
ience tends to tear down stereotypes and increase tolerance and under-
standing. He therefore predicted that there would be some obvious
relationships between the amount of foreign experience and the most
important influence upon the interest in foreign nations and persons,
and such things as propensity to make positive and negative interac-
tion choices, tendency to feel responsibilities toward foreign stu-
dents in the U.S., and attitudes toward relationships between foreign
and American students.

There was no relationship whatsoever between degree of foreign

experience (using the categories in Table 9) and either attitudes

40

toward foreign student-American relationships or the number and kind
of responsibilities felt toWard foreign student associates. Nor was
there any relationship between the most important influence upon in-
terest in foreign nations and people (as outlined on page 25) and
either of those variables. Both degree of foreign contact and type
of most important influence showed a slight, insignificant inverse
relationship with the propensity to list positive and negative asso-
ciational preferences; but the tendency was so negligible it could
not even really be called a trend. Probably by the time a person is
of college age he has been subject to so many influences that a small
segment of his experience would not be significantly predictive of

his attitudes.

Chapter Four

OVERALL FOREIGN STUDENT CONTACT OF THE SAMPLE AT MSU

Interaction with the Japanese on campus seldom constituted
the only experience with foreign students that a respondent had had.
Indeed, in most cases the relationship examined in the interview
constituted only one small part of a fairly large body of experience
with foreign nationals. As we have already mentioned, fourteen of
the sampLe had been to a foreign country themselves for two weeks
or more--of whom eleven were there to study or live or serve military
duty for more than two months. And twenty-six of the sample listed
contact with some foreign national or first generation American as
instrumental in making them aware of or interested in foreign people
and places.

The sample were asked how many foreign students they knew
well enough to consider them acquaintances. A large majority knew
several, as Table 14 shows. Only four persons knew no more than two,
only eleven no more than five; and the median number known was close
to ten. The foreign students known came from all over the world;
respondents mentioned thirtyeseven separate nationality groups as

those they associates with most often.38

 

38Seven countries were mentioned five or more times: Japan,
32; India, 18; Nationalist China, 8; Canada, 7; Korea, 7; Thai-
land, 7; and Colombia, 5. All of these countries (except Colombia)
were represented on campus by contingents of larger than 35 students
during winter term, 1968.

41

42

TABLE 14

NUMBER OF FOREIGN STUDENTS WITH WHOM RESPONDENTS WERE ACQUAINTED

 

 

 

 

mm.
Number of foreign Number of respondents
students known who said they knew this many
1 or 2 4 (11%)
3 to 5 7 (19%)
6 to 10 8 (22%)
11 to 20 9 (25%)
more than 20 8 (22%)
Totals 36 (100%)

 

 

Table 15 is a comprehensive display of data concerning

contact with and attitudes about nationalities. The percentages of

respondents in this study who listed as frequent associates national-

ity groups from the major groupings are shown. These

pared to the associate preference data from Table 10,

ing data from Table 11. Finally, the six nationality

ranked according to the number of students from those
39

on the MSU campus winter term, 1968.

The addition of rank by size of contingent on

data are com-
and to the rank-
groupings are

nationalities

campus, which

is a rough measure of opportunity to associate, adds new perspective

on the other rankings. First, we see that the association ranks for

 

39Data were obtained from geographical lists for that term.

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44

Indiana and Latin Americans and their ranks by number on campus are
consistent for 311 samples. The two rankings diverge rather notice-
ably in one or two studies for the other four nationality groupings.
Secondly, we notice that of the three samples, the Indian study sample
is the only one where the association rankings are in consistently good
correspondence with the availability rankings for the same nationality
groupings. The other two samples show a sizeable divergence of their
rankings in at least one instance. We note also that the European
study sample had the best correspondence between preferred and actual
association.

The respondents spent a large amount of time with foreign
students. Over the 1967-8 school year, nineteen said that during at
least one term they spent no less than twelve hours a week with for-
eign students, and only six said they averaged two hours a week or
less every term. In the term of the interviews, fourteen said they
were spending at least twelve hours a week, and twelve said they were
spending two hours a week or less with foreign students. In many
cases, the amount of contact dropped spring term because foreign
students the respondent had met in classes fall or winter terms were
not in classes with him spring term. This suggests that a substan-
tial proportion of relationships with foreign students among the re-
spondents in the sample were centered around academics, and were
likely to be curtailed if the academic contact ceased.

The channels through which the sample had met foreign students

indicate that the beginnings of relationships with foreign students

45

were not based on a broad set of common interests. Table 16 summarizes
the circumstances in which respondents had met foreign students. Al-
most all were met through classes or graduate departments, living units,
and mutual friends. Only seven respondents mentioned seeking out for-
eign students in gpy_way;4l of the eight "other" circumstances, none
involved membership in a voluntary organization. This suggests that
relationships with foreign students were usually generated by ecolog-
ically precipitated contact--as data from Chapter Two has already in-

dicated.

TABLE 16

CHANNELS OF FIRST CONTACT BETWEEN THE SAMPLE AND
THE FOREIGN STUDENTS THEY KNEW

 

 

Percentage of respondents
Channel of contact who had met a foreign student
through that channel

 

Lived with or had an office
with a foreign student 69%

I‘
In same class or
graduate department 67%

Introduced by mutual friend 50%

Deliberately sought contact
with foreign students 19%

Other 22%

 

 

 

 

41"Seeking out" refers to volunteering for or participating
in programs designed to promote_American-foreign student interaction:
International Club, host family arrangements, English tutoring, etc.

46

Further evidence that most relationships with foreign students
developed out of unplanned ecological and social proximity comes from
the reasons given by twenty-nine of the sample for associating most
often with particular nationality groups: “Those were the ones I hap-
pened to meet," or "They were the ones in my department," or "Those
were the ones in the dorm." Seventeen respondents noted other kinds
of antecedent conditions as well but only six of these involved con-
scious seeking-out of foreign students in one way or another. On the
basis of such evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the ini-
tial contact between this sample of American students and the particu-
lar foreign students they had met was almost purely coincidental.42

Respondents were asked in what kinds of activities they par-
ticipated with the foreign students they knew. The list of activities
shown in Table 17 was placed in front of them, and they named the ap—
plicable types. The frequency with which various activities were
listed is shown in the table. The median number of types of activi-
ties participated in with foreign students is six, and only four re-
spondents listed four or fewer.

Respondents were asked if they had ever been in an uncomfort-

able situation with foreign students. Twenty-six (72%) said they had.

 

42Further evidence that respondents did not actively seek out

foreign contacts was their listing of their correspondence, if any,
with foreign nationals. Twenty-four did not write to any at all.

Five were writing only to a friend or two whom they had met in college
and who had gone home within the past two years; one was writing occa-
sionally to his in-laws; two were writing to people they had met over-
seas within the past two years. Only six persons were writing to for-
eign nationals they had met more than two years prior to the interview.
Of these, one had a pen pal, two had met the person while overseas, one

47

TABLE 17

PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS WHO PARTICIPATE WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS

IN VARIOUS TYPES OF ACTIVITIES

 

 

Type of activity

Percentage of respon-
dents who participate
with foreign students
in this type of

 

 

activity
General discussions 100%
Personal discussions 72%
Academic activities 72%
Social activities 61%
Spectator events 58%
Drinking (at an establishment) 47%
Sports or games 42%
Entertaining at home (or in parents' home) 42%
Trips out of town 39%
Dating and double-dating 31%
Work for pay 14%
Religious activities 8%

 

 

 

had met the person while an undergraduate six years earlier, and
three had met the persons when they were foreign exchange students

in this country.

48

Forty percent of these cases involved communication difficulties--
something to be expected in interaction across a language barrier.
Approximately half the uncomfortable situations involved only the
respondent and a foreign student; and half included the presence

of other people. Only seven respondents reported encountering a
situation which involved gross discrepancies in cultural expecta-
tions; six of these reported incidents which were sufficiently
unsettling to have affected their outlook on some group of foreign
students. Five of these cases involved female respondents and male
foreign students; of these four were brought about by differing cul-
tural interpretations of gender-role behavior.

The whole of this chapter further supports what some attitud-
inal responses have already indicated: that the sample tended to
minimize the importance of differences in relationships with foreign
students. They were not likely to seek out foreign student contact,
nor to work hard at maintaining it or building on it when it came
their way. On the other hand, there is no evidence they discouraged
it; and there is reason to believe they may have been more receptive

to it than others.

Chapter Five

THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE 'RELATIONSH IP

A. General Characteristics

The most prolonged portion of the interview was a series of
questions centered around the relationship between the respondent
and the one Japanese student he felt he knew best. The name of this
Japanese student was not requested, but several respondents used the
name of the Japanese in the interview to refer to him. In addition,
various items of demographic data were requested. The detailing of
this demographic data and the occasional use of a name permitted com-
parisons among interviews to see which respondents were talking about
the same Japanese. A total of eighteen different Japanese were dis-
cussed by the thirty-six respondents. These eighteen Japanese seemed
to be extremely homogeneous as to their placement in Japanese society.
All but two or three came from well-to-do, urban families. This homo-
geneity of background probably limits the variation in the data due
to the Japanese.

Earlier it was pointed out that the Japanese usually named, as
Americans they knew well, students who were similar to themselves in
gender, marital status, local residence, academic level, and to some
extent major. As Table 18 shows, an almost identical level of

49

 

50

TABLE 18

SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE JAPANESE AND THE AMERICANS IN THE
POPULATION AND IN THE SAMPLE

 

 

 

 

Type of similarity
Gen- Marital Resi- Academic Depart- Colle
der status dence level ment ge
Percentage of the
population similar
to the Japanese who 84% 70% 52% 68% 26% 39%
named them in this
characteristic
Percentage of the
sample similar to
the Japanese they 78% 69% 56% 67% 25% 39%
discussed in this
characteristic,

 

 

similarity existed for the sample and the Japanese they knew best.
There is, on the basis of these data, no reason to believe that the
sample was atypical of the population.

There were only eight cross-gender relationships, six of
which were between Japanese men and American women. The two rela-
tionships involving American men were with the same Japanese woman,
and the other two Japanese women named no men. In none of the
eight cross-gender relationships was there any evidence given of
an existing or prior romantic attachment; only in the two cases of
the American men and the Japanese woman were both members of the re-
lationship single during a portion of the time since the relation-

ship had begun.

 

51

With regard to residence, the similarity becomes more striking
if we add to those currently living in the same type of housing as the
Japanese they discussed, the four more (11%) who were living in the
same type of housing as the Japanese when they first met them.

One-third of all the relationships were across academic levels,
but every one of these was between an American undergraduate and a
Japanese graduate. It is significant, though perhaps not unexpected,
that in a disproportionate number of these twelve relationships, the
American did not know the Japanese well. Perhaps the new Japanese
graduate student, less autonomous in his environment than an American
counterpart would have been, was more likely to become involved with
an undergraduate-—a relationship which probably would not have been
further cultivated if the Japanese became firmly rooted in a circle
of graduate friends. Certainly the chances that a Japanese graduate
would meet an American undergraduate are far greater than the likeli-
hood that an American graduate would meet a Japanese undergraduate.

A complete comparison with the other studies on demographic
similarities is not possible; but Judy does cite the data from the
European and Indian studies on the similarity of the academic major:
47% similarity between Americans and the Indians they knew best, and
30% similarity between Americans and the Europeans they knew best.43
The degree of similarity in this study (25%) conforms more nearly to

that in the European study than to that in the Indian study. However,

 

43Judy, op. cit., p. 21.

52

when circumstances of first meeting are examined, as shown in Table 19,
we see that the data of the Japanese study more nearly resemble that

from the Indian study.

TABLE 19

CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH AMERICANS FIRST MET FOREIGN STUDENTS

 

 

 

 

= —=

Americans Americans Americans

Type of Circumstances 3.3.3:: ¥23i§§:”4 3323.523!“

(N = 36) (N = 30) (N = 30)
Academic proximity 42%* 36% 27%
Residential proximity 25% 33% 43%
Through a mutual friend l4%** 17% 30%
"Seeking out" activities 8% 0% 0%
Other 11% 14% 0%

 

 

 

 

*Two of the Japanese also lived in the same living unit as the Ameri-
can, but the respondent stated that they first became acquainted in
the classroom situation.

**Two of the Japanese were listed by respondents as roommates of a good
American friend in the same dormitory. They were placed in this
category on the assumption that the mutual friend was the precipi-
tating factor in the relationship.

With respect to the length of time the Americans had known the
foreign students, the Japanese study is intermediate between the Indian
and European studies. Table 20 presents the comparison. Notice that

the distribution of the Japanese study is almost exactly midway between

those of the Indian and European studies.

 

44Data for the Indian and European studies are from Judy, 9p,

cit., p. 21.

LENGTH OF TIME AMERICANS HAD KNOWN

53

TABLE 20

FOREIGN STUDENTS

 

 

Americans Americans Americans
Length of Time who knew who knew who knew
Japanese Indians45 Europeans45
Less than one year 58% 40% 77%
One to two years 28% 30% 23%
More than two years 14% 27% 0%
Unknown 0% 3% 0%

 

 

 

 

In the present study, the range of length of time Americans
had known their Japanese associate was from five months to four years.
The median was nine months (relationships which originated at the be-
ginning of the then current school year), and the mean was fifteen
months. The length of time the American had known the Japanese did
not seem to be related to other aspects of the relationship, except
that relationships begun only five months before the interview were
in no case well developed.

Respondents were asked to describe their Japanese associate
"as a person." In all they used over one hundred words or phrases,
few of them exactly equivalent, in their descriptions. Only two char-
acteristics were attributed to a large number of the Japanese: fif-

teen (42%) of the respondents described their Japanese associate as

 

45Data for the Indian and European studies are from Judy,

op. cit., p. 20.

54

"friendly" or something almost exactly equivalent; thirteen (36%)
described him as "intelligent" or something almost exactly equiva-
lent.

The kinds of characteristics listed can be organized into
meaningful categories, however. Attributes are categorized as either
concrete or abstract. By "concrete" we mean attributes which are
observable from definite acts or statements; by "abstract" we mean
attributes which require inference on the part of the observer, based
not only on the repeated behavior of the individual, but the overall
situation in which his behavior is observed.

Concrete attributes are further subdivided into "physical"
and "thought-content." Physical characteristics refer to physical
appearance or skill: "good-looking," or "a good cook," or "athletic."
Thought-content characteristics refer to expressed thoughts or feel-
ings: "Likes Americans," "Wants to learn English quickly."

Abstract characteristics are subcategorized as "social" and
"personal." Social characteristics refer to those observed and mani—
fest in social interaction: "outgoing," or "friendly," or "cheer-
ful." Personal characteristics are those not dependent upon social
interaction for their display: "intelligent," or "conscientious,"
or "patient." Personal characteristics are subdivided into "mental"
and "nonrmental" according to whether they imply conscious mental
performance or not. Table 21 shows theypercentage of respondents who

used each kind of descriptive term.

55

TABLE 21

RESPONDENTS' DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES

 

 

 

 

Percentage of respondents
Category or sub-category
. . who used that category
of descriptive term
or sub—category
Concrete 69%
physical 39%
thought content 7 50%
Abstract 95%
social 89%
personal 72%
mental 47%
non~mental 50%

 

 

 

Respondents were asked how much time they usually spent with
their Japanese associates during a week. A few more than half gave
a single answer; the remainder explained that since some past point
in time, the amount of time spent had altered drastically, and they
estimated both current and maximum amount of time spent. The maximum
amount of time ever spent with the Japanese associate is a much
better predictor of other aspects of the relationship than is current
time spent; comments on the closeness of the relationship and accounts
of things done together were in every case based on the total rela-

tionship, rather than what was going on the term of the interview.

56

Table 22, which reveals the distribution of the amount of time spent
together, therefore includes the estimate for the term of the inter-

view and for the maximum estimate provided for any term.

TABLE 22

AMOUNT OF TIME RESPONDENTS ESTIMATED THEY SPENT WITH THEIR
JAPANESE ASSOCIATES PER WEEK

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percentage of respondents Percentage of respondents
unt of time who-estimated they were who estimated that amount
spending that much time as the most they ever
during spring term, 1968 spent during a term
Once a week or
or less for two
or three hours
or less 53% 14%
In between 11% 31%
Several times
a week or an
average of at
least an hour
a day 36% 55%
A?“

 

 

 

B. Time-Structuring of the Relationship

For any two-person relationship, the time spent together can
be dichotomized according to whether the two persons are by themselves
or are associating with other people. The term "alone" will be used

to mean social rather than physical aloneness. Thus, if two people

57

go to the theater in their own company only, attend the movie as a
pair rather than as two people in a larger social grouping, and leave
as a pair only, for our purposes here they are alone.46 Any number
greater than two is a group.

The time spent by two people together can also be dichoto-
mized according to whether the time is spent at scheduled events or
spent informally. Scheduled events begin at a particular time in a
particular place: g;g., a movie, a dinner party, a football game.
Informal "events" are all others.4

If these two dichotomous dimensions are combined, the time
two people spend together can be separated into four components;
furthermore, their time-structuring can be characterized by the rank
order of these four components according to the amount of time repre-
sented by each.

Figure 1 illustrates a tabular representation of time-
structuring. Figure l—A shows the identification numbers of the
cells. Figure 1-B represents a relationship in which more time is
spent alone in informal activities than in any other way, more time
is spent informally with a group than in all scheduled activities
together, and more time is spent in scheduled activities with others

than alone.

 

46For fine distinctions one would need to decide whether or

not the two are still alone if they go to buy popcorn, or if they say
"Hi“ to a friend as they walk into the theater. Such fine distinc-
tions are not necessary here.

7Here again, for fine distinctions a number of borderline
cases would have to be categorized. Our data are not sufficiently
refined either to permit or to require such fine distinctions.

58

If two cells represent approximately equal portions of the

time of a relationship, they are treated as tied ranks. If one or

more cells do not represent any activities in a particular relation-

ship, the cell or cells are filled in with zeros, and the remaining

cells are ranked beginning with one.

Figure l-C shows an example of

tied ranks, and Figure l-D a relationship consisting of nothing but

scheduled activities with a group.

nothing more than inequalities or equalities.

In all cases, rankings represent

No implication of

proportionality is intended, and only the number 0 represents an ab-

solute amount.

Figure l

Tabular Representation of Time-Structuring in Two-Person Relationships

Figure l-A
Identification
numbers of the
separate cells

1*

S**

 

Alon; II

I

 

with

 

group

III

 

IV

 

 

*I
**S

Informal.
Scheduled.

Figure l-B
Example of
representation
of a time—
structure

I S
A l 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure l-C
Example of
tied cells

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure l-D
Representation
of a single-cell
time-structure

 

S
.0 o]

 

 

 

.. 1]

 

Two regularities stand out in the data on time-structuring. In

the first place, although there are over a hundred possible ranking

orders including those obtained with tied ranks and zeros, and twenty-

four ranking orders are possible without tied ranks or zeros, two of

59

these orders contain a third of all the cases and two-thirds of all
non-zero, un-tied relationships; four time-structure rankings contain
exactly half of all relationships, and all the relationships which
have no ties or zeros. Secondly, respondents usually made it obvious
that far more than 50% (usually close to 90%) of their activities
were represented in the first— and second-ranked cells.

All cases can be grouped into two out of four possible basic
orientations and two special cases. The basic orientations are de-
fined by the placement of the first two cells along one edge of the
tabular representation. If cells I and II receive the first two ranks,
then the relationship represented is "alone-oriented." If cells II

and III are ranked first and second, the relationship is "informally

oriented." If cells III and IV are ranked first and second, the re-
lationship is "group-oriented." And if cells IV and I receive ranks
one and two, the relationship is "schedule-oriented." The special

cases not represented by one of the basic orientations are single-cell
relationships, where only one cell represents activities in the rela-
tionship; tied rankings that do not permit ranks one and two to be
separated from ranks three and four; and two "cross-rankings"--ranks
one and two appearing in cells I and III, or cells II and IV. All
relationships between respondents and the Japanese they knew best fell
into either the informal or the group orientations, cross ranking
II-IV, or a single cell. The frequencies of each of these are shown

in Table 23.

60

TABLE 23

FREQUENCIES OF TYPES OF TIME-STRUCTURES AMONG THE
AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIPS

 

 

:2
Number and percentage of
Type of time-structure respondents whose rela-
tionship was of that type

 

 

Informally oriented 24 (67%)
Group-oriented 4 (11%)
Cross-ranking II-IV 6 (17%)
Single-cell relationship 2 ( 5%)

 

 

 

By themselves, the data in Table 23 reveal little other than
the fact that two-thirds of the respondents had predominantly informal
relationships with their Japanese associates. However, these data
provide one means of comparing dominant relationship characteristics
among different groups. One would expect sizeable variations from one
group to another, and perhaps from one culture to another. For example,
in most Spanish-speaking countries, one would expect most relationships
between unmarried non-relatives of the opposite gender to-be group—
oriented, and primarily filled with scheduled group activities.

Dating relationships among middle-class Americans should disclose
strong tendencies toward alone-orientation, and considerably more
emphasis on alone-scheduled activities than in the American-Japanese
relationships. (In this study, no relationship was found where cell I

was ranked higher than 3; and usually it received rank 4 or 0.)

61

Data sufficiently precise to permit exact comparisons are not
provided from the other studies; but the European study contains two
hints that the relationships between Americans and Europeans had a
much higher proportion of group orientation than the relationships
between Americans and Japanese. Borck comments in one place that
"many of the Americans in this sample have foreign contacts only be—
cause the Europeans are a part of their social group."48 Also, as has
already been demonstrated in Table 19, Americans in the European study
met EurOpeans through mutual friends much more often than the sample

in this study met Japanese through mutual friends.

C. Intimacy49

The word "intimacy" is oftentimes used to connote physical or
psychological closeness between individuals. There is a concomitant
variable of psychological closeness which can be examined and at least
roughly quantified--the amount of information exchanged between indi-
viduals. This is not to say that the sheer volume of information ex-
changed between two persons is a comprehensive indicator of the degree
of psychological closeness; but for lack of a better term, "intimacy"
will be used here to refer to a relationship dimension along which

amount of information exchanged is measured.

 

48Borck, op. cit., p. 11.

49 . . .
The concept of intimacy developed here 15 built upon the
concept of the intimate relationship expounded in lectures by Dr.

John Useem.

62

We may represent the "life—facts" of an individual by a circle,
with information a person feels it most important to keep to himself
in the center, and information he feels most free to disclose at the
outer edge. We assume that there is a gradient of difficulty between
the outer edge and the innermost point, such that for another indi-
vidual to obtain more central information requires more effort (in
the sense of time invested in a personalized relationship, or perhaps
in the sense of conversational bludgeoning, etc.) than to obtain less
central information. Then relationships can be compared according to
the degree of centrality of the information which is exchanged. We
shall postulate that if information at a given distance from the center
is exchanged, all information at a greater distance is also exchanged;
so that the most central information exchanged is an indicator of the
volume of information exchanged.

But there is no reason to believe that the gradient of diffi-
culty from the outer boundary to the center is constant; rather, there
are what might be called "intimacy levels" within the circle, smaller
concentric circles within the original circle which serve as boundaries
between one area and another more private area. These boundaries are
a definite and rather sudden stiffening of the gradient of difficulty.
As another individual approaches‘such an inner boundary in probing
deeper into someone's life facts, he perceives a sudden barrier (per-
haps described later by "When I started talking about such-and-such
he just clammed up.") Once one gets past such a barrier, there is a

perceptible relaxing of the gradient, and a whole new area of infor-

mation becomes accessible with relatively little effort.

63

Figures 2-A through 2-D represent certain aspects of intimacy
structure. In Figure 2A and Figure 2-B we see represented two indi-
viduals with the same number of intimacy levels, but greatly different
boundary placements. Someone who has become acquainted with the per-
son represented by 2~A would find that a small amount of information
exchange would soon exhaust everything the person seems willing to
talk about. Once past that initial barrier, however, this other per-
son would find everything about the individual open to him. In con-
trast, someone just acquainted with the individual represented by
Figure 2-B would be able to obtain a great amount of information
-readily, and would then find a restriction around a small portion

at the center.

Figure 2

Partial Representation of Intimacy Structuring

A B C D

C...

64

Figure 2-C represents an individual who has three separate
intimacy levels. Figure 2-D represents a person with a large number
(in this case six) separate levels. If the two persons represented
by 2-C and 2-D were to become acquainted, the former might well think
the latter abnormally secretive, and the latter might well think the
former abnormally "pushy"; for the man with three levels would dis-
cover barriers in the other between items of information that he
himself considers on the same level, while the man with six levels
would resent what he might perceive as undue familiarity on the part
of the other.

, Some other aspects of the intimacy structure which are not
represented in the schematic presentation used here are the hardness
of boundaries, the gradient of difficulty within particular levels
of intimacy, and fluctuations of the placement of boundaries accord-

ing to changes in mood or circumstances of the individual.50

 

50A three-dimensional analogy might be less unfamiliar. The

conceptualization here is similar to that of quantum levels in nuclear
physics. The use of the word "level" also seems less awkward in ref-
erence to concentric spheres than to concentric circles.

We could also take a mountain as an analogue, where cliffs
would be analogous to level boundaries. Indeed, perhaps a drawing
of a mountain would better represent the conceptualization, since it
would suggest both different gradients of difficulty at different
levels and different degrees of hardness in various boundaries better
than a two-dimensional drawing of concentric circles can.

The mountain analogy also suggests something else, and excel-
lently represents it: segmentalization of intimacy. The gradient of
the slope and the difficulty of the cliffs an individual encounters
in climbing a mountain are partly a matter of which side of the moun-
tain he climbs. Similarly, the number of levels, and their gradients,
and the placement of their boundaries, and the hardness of their

65

To be comprehensive, this model would need far more elabora-
tion. There is little reason further to elaborate the model here,
however, since the crudeness of the data would not permit the appli-
cation of finely wrought elaborations. We shall be concerned, in
rather simple fashion at best, with the number of levels, the content
of levels, the relative placement of boundaries, and the hardness of
boundaries.

The questionnaire used to gather the data for the study was

designed with the implicit assumption that there are two intimacy

 

boundaries, in any particular person's intimacy structure, are likely
to be a matter of the area in which one probes.

An individual may lead a life so segmented that those who know
everything about his home life may know nothing about his work life,
and vice versa. Figure 3 demonstrates three aspects of segmentaliza-
tion in intimacy. Figure 3-A represents complete segmentalization:
one may penetrate completely to the core in one area and still not
know anything about other areas. Figure 3-B represents incomplete
segmentaliéation: up to a point, one's knowledge of the individual's
work life, for example, is not predictive of one's knowledge of his
home life. Beyond a certain level, however, knowledge of any area
implies knowledge of all areas on the same level. Figure 3-C repre-
sents unequal boundary placement in different areas in an incompletely
segmentalized intimacy structure.

Segmentalization will not be dealt with in this chapter be-
cause there are not any data from the study that bear directly on it.

Figure 3

Segmentalization in Intimacy Structures

 

 

 

66

levels in everyone. The information brought out in the various inter-
views uncovered the falsity of this assumption. The researcher is
fairly sure that there are in general three distinct levels of inti-
macy in both the American sample and the Japanese students they dis-
cussed. Furthermore, there is good reason to believe the Americans
tend to have relatively similar placement of level boundaries; and
.some evidence that the Japanese are similar to each other in their
boundary placement. That is to say, although the two groups differ
in the content in each level and therefore the size of each level,

it would appear that within each group there is fairly good agreement
as to the contents of each level.

The data are hopelessly inadequate to the task of outlining
in detail the contents of the intimacy levels. A rough sketch is
possible, however, which will provide some means of comparing the
Japanese to the Americans. A listing of a few items for which ade-
quate indications of level were given in the interviews is made in
Table 24.

Respondents were asked Whether they felt it would.be easier
for another American to become acquainted with them, or with their
Japanese associates. Twenty-six (72%) thought another American
could more easily become acquainted with them, rather than the Japa-
nese. Of these, however, eight specifically said that this was the
result of the language barrier, rather than anything else; and since
this was volunteered information not suggested by the question, it is

likely that other respondents answered on the same basis. In addition,

67

.moosausfi mo Hm>mH umnam on» no ma soflumshomcw mo omsmnoxw on» muog3 mwnmcowumaon m .mfl Hosea

 

1W

mGOAUAQEm Hmsomnmm
msfioamum Hmwocmsfim mo mawmumo
nufl3 mwnmsowumH
Ion Hm>ma was as msomumm mo msowumsam>m Hmsomnmm
womnvmomsw mo mmswaowm
msofluosm Hmsomumm vacuum
muonuo
spas mmanmcowumamn woman Hm>wa mo muommmm.HH¢
muosuo spas mQaSmGOAHMHoH 03» Hm>oa mo muommmm Add
mnmnuo sows

mandamooom madmaoom was Ms mGOAMAQEm anaemnom

meascmum Hmaocmaam mo magnuma

homawoomsfi mo mmsflaomm

Aoaomv msoauosm Hmsomuom moonum
mmfinmsowumamu noun» Hwbma Ho

03“ Ho>oa um msomumm mo msofiumsaw>w as:0mumm
muonuo

Buds mmanmcowumeH mossy Hm>oa mo muommmm Had
mumnuo spas mmflnm

 

 

 

 

mmflsmsowuoamu moo Hm>oa mo muommmm owumfimanoum Icoaumamu o3» Ho>oa.mo muowmmm oauusmanoum mouse
msoauwnsm Hmcomuom magnummoom maamaoom
.m.D on“ can smmmo mo msomflnmmfioo Housuaso umoz mwnmsowumeH
omoommmo man was woo Ho>ma um msomuom mo ms0fluosam>m HocOmuom
comma mo muoommm Hmowmoaonommmlamaoom cam HMAUOm Awsomv msofluosm Hmsomuom msouum
mEmHnosm Hafioom Ho muflmmmm UHH03 usonm macaswmo muosuo nua3 mmanm
nuaz sowumaon cw uoo mGOmHom mo cowumsam>o Hmsomnom loosumHmH ozu Ho>oa mo muommmm owumsoanonmlsoz
. mnonuo Buw3 muozuo paws
mmflnmso«umHoH woo Hm>ma mo muoommm owudfioanoumlsoz mafiamsowumamu moo Ho>oa mo muoommo owumsmanonm 039
.m.D can smash mo msomwnmmsoo Hmuauaso uwoz
.m.D mo muommmm owumsmanoumlso: Had
A.oum .Hoonom .Honumo3v xamu HHMEm
sowumswomsw Hoowsnomu w>flumsam>musoz
xuo3wmmao.uoonm maoaswmo
.m.D ocm,smmmo mo mGOmflHmmEoo Housuaso wommuam msoanoum Hmaoom w whammmm oano3 usonm msowswmo
comma mo muoommm owsmmnmosmo can Hananmmnmoow nuw3 masmsoau
A.oum .Hoosom .Hmnumo3v xHMU1HHmEm Inflow aw uos maomuwm mo msowuooam>w Hocomuom
coaumshomcw Hmoasaomu m>fiumaao>olsoz «mnonuo nuw3 mmflsmGOHu
xno3mmmao poops msowswmo Imam“ oso Hw>oa mo muommmm usumsmanoumlcoz 0:0
mmosommo msmowuosd aw>oq
“fl

 

 

mmmzmmdh QZ<.mZ<UHmw2¢ MOE MUflZHBZH ho mflm>fln ho mBZNBZOU

om mnmda

 

68

four thought the ease of acquaintance would be about the same in each
case, and four that another American could more easily become ac-
quainted with the Japanese. When to this evidence is added the will-
ingness with which the Japanese assisted the researcher, apparently
with neither suspicion nor a feeling of being imposed upon, the con-
clusion seems well—founded that the outermost boundaries of the
Americans and the Japanese are about equally soft.

To obtain some information about the hardness of the inner
level boundaries of the Japanese and Americans relative to each other,
respondents were asked which of them, their Japanese associate or they
themselves, tended to confide more in the other. To guard against
misconstruing idiosyncratic answers, respondents were also asked two
related questions: whether they or their Japanese associates would
more readily take personal problems to an equally-well-known mutual
American friend; and whether their Japanese associates or Americans
who knew them approximately as well as the Japanese would more readily
bring personal problems to them.

The responses overall do not point one way or the other.

They are analyzed in Table 25 according to categories of consistency.
As the table shows, the largest single category is that of persons

who listed the American as more likely to confide in one case, and

the Japanese in another. The number of respondents who consistently
said the American would more readily confide is twice as large as the
number who consistently said the Japanese would; but the proportion of
the population answering that way is much smaller than the proportion

answering inconsistently.

 

69

TABLE 25

CONSISTENCY OF ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RELATIVE EASE
WITH WHICH AMERICANS AND JAPANESE CONFIDE

 

 

Category of consistency
in the answers

Percentage of respondents
whose answers were in
that category

 

Consistently answered that the American
more readily confides

Consistently answered that the
Japanese more readily confides

Consistently asnwered that both
confide equally readily

Inconsistently answered with a combina-
tion of "the American" and “it's even"

Inconsistently answered with a combina-
tion of "the Japanese" and "it's even"

Inconsistently answered with a combina-
tion of "the American" and "the Japanese

Answered "don't know" or gave indeter-
minate answers to two of the three
questions

 

19%

8%

6%

14%

8%

31%

14%

 

There is no conclusive evidence for any interpretation; but

the large percentage of inconsistent answers suggests that perhaps

the hardness of the inner level boundaries are similar for Americans

and Japanese, just as the hardness of the outermost level boundary

is similar. Additional evidence supporting the suggestion of roughly

equal hardness in inner level boundaries is provided by the respon-

dents' answers to questions about significant events in their rela-

tionships with their Japanese associates.

 

70

In developing this model of intimacy structure, it was
asserted that intimacy level boundaries require much more effort
to pass through them than is usually required to gain additional
information in any one intimacy level once one has broken into that

level. One can conceive, then, of an "intimacy leap, where some

act or commonly perceived external event or mutual crisis serves

as an "energizer, propelling a relationship to a higher level of
intimacy rather abruptly.

Fourteen respondents described an abrupt change in the inti-
macy level of information exchanged in their relationship with their
Japanese associate. In seven of these cases, the Japanese upon his
own initiative undertook to change the level (or said or did some-
thing which had that effect.) In two cases, it was the American
who took the initiative. In the other five cases, an external event
affected the relationship in that fashion. The proportion of cases
involved is too small to do more than suggest; but it would appear
that if there is a difference in the hardness of the inner level
boundaries, it is the Americans who have the harder ones.

Four of the cases of Japanese initiative, both of the cases
of American initiative, and four of the cases of external events
shifted the level of intimacy from one to two. In the remaining
instances the level shifted from two to three.

Each respondent was asked three questions to help in assign-

ing the relationships to the proper intimacy level: (1) how close

he thought the relationship was; (2) how close he thought his

 

71

Japanese associate would say the relationship was; and (3) how well
he thought his Japanese associate knew him. Table 26 shows the

summary of responses to the first two of these questions.

TABLE 26

PERCEIVED CLOSENESS OF THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIPS

 

 

Level of closeness at which
respondents saw the rela-

 

 

tionships
l 2 3 4
l. Acquaintanceship 7 1

 

Level of closeness
at which respond- 2. Friendship 5 2
ents estimated the

 

Japanese saw the
relationships 3. Good friendship l 15

 

4. Close friendship 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was only one relationship which seemed to involve any
dislike of the Japanese by the American, and this seemed more to in-
volve ambivalence than an outright aversion to the person. As the
table shows, a majority saw the relatiOnship as more than casual

friendship, but very few considered it a close friendship.51

 

51In terms of the three intimacy levels of the model, both

friendship and acquaintanceship fall in the first level. Close
friendship was applied by respondents to relationships at both the
second and third levels of intimacy.

 

72

Weighing heavily the responses to the questions last mentioned,
but taking into account all the information given about each relation-
ship and also relying somewhat on written impressions of the respond-
ent and his relationship written down immediately following each in-
terview, the researcher assigned the relationships to intimacy levels.

The results are outlined in Table 27.

TABLE 27

LEVELS OF INTIMACY ATTAINED IN THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American-to-Japanese
intimacy level
1 2 3
l 19 3
Japanese—
to-
American
intimacy
level 2 4 9
3 l

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we assume the researcher's judgments to be valid, then some
respondents tended to discount the signs of different assessment of
the relationship which they were sufficiently aware of to report to
the researcher; for there are more cases of inconsistency here than
are shown in Table 26. Also, apparently "close friendship" does not
necessarily imply to an.American a sharing of information at the third

level of intimacy.

73

In summary, Japanese and Americans seem to have roughly
equally hard boundaries to their three intimacy levels; the Japanese
obviously have their two inner intimacy levels extending further away
from the center than do the Americans (see Figure 4); and finally,
most of the relationships examined had not gone beyond the first level

of intimacy in either direction.

Figure 4

Relative Placement'of Intimacy Level BOundaries among
' Japanese and Americans

A. B.
The Japanese Intimacy The American Intimacy
Structure Structure

74
. . . 52
D. IndiViduation, or Stereotypy of Response

In dealing with the Japanese student, did the respondent treat
him as a particular individual or more as a member of some grouping or
"just like anybody else"? This is not quite the same as asking whether
the respondent perceived the Japanese in these fashions; that is, we
shall be concerned here not with the extent to which the respondent
had a stereotyped imagg_of the Japanese or people in general, but the
extent to which the respondent actually treated his Japanese associate
as though he were operating under such a stereotype.

Unfortunately, of course, it is not all that simple. The re-
spondent, asked how he treated his Japanese associate differently from
Americans may well have answered "not at all" on the basis of some in—
grained value rather than of actual reflection upon his own behavior.
To try to offset this source of invalidity, answers to several questions
which bear only indirectly on this variable were examined for evidence
of inconsistency with answers to directly relevant questions.

There were four different questions asked which directly re-
late to the issue. The first was a simple "Is this relationship dif-
ferent from the ones you have with Americans?" Seventeen stated there
was no difference, seven pointed out only that the topics of conversa-
tion were different in some way, and twelve said that there was a

qualitative difference of some sort in the relationship. Presented

 

52Practically the total conceptualization here is taken from
the lectures of Dr. John Useem, and his concept of the categorical
relationship.

75

with a series of possible differences, more respondents pointed out
dissimilarities. Table 28 shows their answers to the question of
whether or not they acted differently toward the Japanese in particu-
lar ways. Comparative data from the Indian and European studies are
included.

Again with a list of potential answers placed before them,
respondents were asked if they would avoid certain kinds of activities
with their Japanese associate. Their responses are reported in
Table 29.53

Coming at the matter from the other direction, the question
was asked, "Do you think your Japanese associate treats you any dif-
ferently from other Americans?" Table 30 lays out the frequencies
of the answers.

Besides these manifest clues to stereotypy of response, there
were answers to other questions that bore indirectly on the matter.
For example, respondents were asked if there were any friction or
disagreement between themselves and their Japanese associate. Answers
to this question could be examined for evidence of greater or lesser
awareness of and response to particularities in the Japanese. Twenty-
three (64%) of the respondents said there was no real friction or vio-

lent disagreements; although four of these commented that they usually

 

3Responses to what apparently was an open-ended question in
the Indian study produced responses of 17% and 37% on the items "dat-
ing or double dating" and "taking to a party of Americans," respec-
tively. There was no avoidance of either by any Americans in the
European study. (Judy, op. cit., p. 23.)

76

TABLE 28

WAYS RESPONDENTS ACTED DIFFERENTLY TOWARD THEIR FOREIGN ASSOCIATES

THAN TOWARD OTHER AMERICANS54

 

Way of acting
differently

Percentage of respondents who reported they
acted differently in that way

 

Japanese
study sample

Indian

study sample

European

study sample

 

Explain English

More careful of
communication*

Converse in a
language besides
English

More polite

More forma1**
More patient**

More pro-American

Explain American
customs

Overlook odd or
different behavior

Avoid certain
topics of conver-
sation

 

 

61% 3% 46%
78% 13% 20%
22% not given not given
42% 53% 13%
19% not given not given
31% not given not given
8% not given not given
47% not given not given
31% not given not given
8% 13% 7%

 

*In the Japanese study this inclusive category referred to more dis-
tinct speech, less use of slang, more clarity of thought, etc.,
whereas in the Indian and European studies it referred only to more

distinct speech (see Borck, op. cit., p. 13).
the large difference in proportions.

This could explain

**These are subcategories, not mutually exclusive, of the category

"more polite."

 

54

Data from the Indian and European studies are from Borck, pp,

cit., p. 13. There is reason to believe, although it is not so stated

 

77

TABLE 29

ACTIVITIES RESPONDENTS WOULD AVOID WITH THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES

 

 

Number of respondents who would

 

 

Activity avoid that activity

Take to parents home 1

Invite to home on campus 1 (l)*

Participate in or watch sports 2

Go to a movie 2 (2)*

Eat out 2 (2)*

Take to a party of Americans 3 (l)*

Date or double date 6 (5)* (17%)

Become seriously involved
personally 8 (6)* (22%)

Activities that would make
him dependent on respondent 10 (28%)

Taking him places where he would

be embarrassed by his nationality 21 (58%)
Religious activities 6 (17%)
Activities with Japanese only 1

 

 

*These numbers in parentheses represent the number of cases who noted
the avoidance was due to inappropriateness because the Japanese or
the American was married.

 

in Borck's text, that these data are based on an open-ended question.
The Japanese study which placed the potential answers before the re-
spondents, obtained only 2 "there is no difference" answers (6%).
Thirty per cent and forty per cent of the respondents in the Indian
and European studies, respectively, are reported to have answered in
that fashion.

 

78

TABLE 30

DID RESPONDENT THINK JAPANESE ASSOCIATE TREATED HIM DIFFERENTLY FROM
OTHER AMERICANS

 

Percentage of respondents

Response who gave that response

 

No 53%

Yes, but only as a function of the

closeness of the relationship 25%
Yes, in some other way 14%
I don't know 8%

 

 

 

 

took opposite sides in certain non-emotional discussions. Of these
twenty-three, only seven said they tried to avoid friction.

Thirteen respondents discussed some friction-producing ele-
ments in their relationships with their Japanese associates. This
percentage (36%) reporting friction is lower than for either the
Indian or European studies.55 This difference may be partially due
to the fact that the other studies included in their percentages cases
of intellectual argument as well as real friction while in this study
only cases of emotionally-laden disagreement were counted. On the
other hand, the Japanese seemed to have impressed their associates

as sensitive, non-pushy people; and it may be that the Japanese did

more to avoid disagreements than either Indians or Europeans.

 

55Judy, op. cit., p. 26. The figures are 44% for the Indian
study and 66% for the European study.

79

The American respondents were asked if they thought there was
anything about themselves that bothered their Japanese associates.
Twenty-one answered no, seven answered yes, and eight said they could
think of something that probably did bother the Japanese, but they had
never received any sign from the Japanese to that effect.

Respondents were also asked if their'Japanese associates had
ever said or done anything that made other people or the respondent

uncomfortable. The results are shown in Table 31.

TABLE 31

HAD THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATE MADE OTHER PEOPLE AND/OR
THE RESPONDENT UNCOMFORTABLE

 

W
Percentage of respondents
Response
who gave that response
No, neither 56%
Yes, others only 11%
Yes, respondent only 14%
Yes, both 19%

 

 

 

 

The types of things done which made someone uncomfortable
ranged from personal mannerisms, such as a high-pitched nervous laugh,
to grossly inappropriate behavior that may or may not have been gener-
ated by differing cultural expectations. Those respondents who said
their Japanese associate had made both someone else and the respondent
himself uncomfortable referred, in four of the-seven cases, to the same

event or trait as making both others and themselves uncomfortable.

80

Finally, the respondents were asked if they had ever told
their Japanese associates that they were doing something "un-American,"
or culturally out of place. Thirty-one said they had not.

The totality of impression from all these data, plus the
analyses of the respondents recorded immediately after the interview,
were combined by the researcher to allow ranking of respondents in one
of three positions. Position one corresponded to maximum stereotypy
of response: the respondent seemed to treat his Japanese associate
as though he were no different from anybody else; or as though he
were merely a representative of a group like "foreign students" or
"Japanese students." Position three corresponded to minimum stereo-
typy of response; the respondent seemed to be keenly aware of and re-
sponsive to idiosyncratic aspects of his Japanese associate and of
his relationship with the Japanese. Position two was in—between
position one and position three.

Used as a check on the assignment of respondents to positions,
but not in the initial determination, were three questions which
served practically as projective tests in stereotypy. The first asked
how typical the respondents thought their Japanese associates were of
Japanese students in general; the second asked for their opinion on how
much alike Japanese students are in general. The third asked for how
much they thought American students are alike in general. The latter
two, due to the construction of the responses, had to be combined into
a single question: "Are Japanese students as a group more or less

alike than American students as a group?" These questions were used

81

as checks rather than determinants, because they seemed especially
susceptible to responses on the basis of values rather than "real"
facts. Nonetheless, if the answers to these questions seemed greatly
out of line with the position assigned to the respondent, the whole
case was reviewed carefully. Review was necessary only twice, and

in each case the researcher merely strengthened his initial judgment.

TABLE 32

THE STEREOTYPY OF RESPONSE OF THE RESPONDENTS IN THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
WITH THEIR JAPANESE ASSOCIATES

 

 

 

Level of stereotypy Number and percentage of respondents
of response assigned to that level
Maximum level of stereotypy 8 (22%)
Medium level of stereotypy 18 (50%)
Minimum level of stereotypy 10 (28%)

 

 

 

 

A further comment on this variable of the relationship is in
order. Americans are faced with conflicting values in this area.
First, they are generally socialized to the value that one treats all
people the same; that discrimination is not fair, except perhaps in
response to prior discrimination. Even though some kinds of discrim-
ination may be built into the socialization process, those not specif-
ically included among the "to be discriminated against" group are sup-
posed to be treated equally.

On the other hand, of course, Americans:also have some sort

of revulsion to the computer-like sameness of which bureaucratized

82

interactions are capable, and seem to shy away from such relationships.
Depending on the perspective of the observer, then, either position

one or position three can be condemned as "wrong" in terms of American
values. Perhaps this helps explain the high percentage of respondents

assigned to the middle category.

E. Strandedness

The concept of strandedness in a relationship is taken from
the anthrOpological concept of strandedness in role structure.56 Just
as a relationship may be considered many-stranded or single-stranded
according to the number of roles embedded in the relationships, so a
relationship may be considered many-stranded or single-stranded accord-
ing as the areas of interaction are many or one. Specifically, for
our purposes, a single-stranded relationship would be one which, for
example, revolved only around academic activities. In the ideal type,
the individuals would never meet save in academic settings for academic
purposes and never discuss anything not directly related to their aca-
demic purposes.

At the other extreme, we could conceive of a relationship in
which activities of every imaginable sort were in turn the focus of

interaction and discussion. There would be no easy way of actually

 

56For one analysis of this concept, see S. F. Nadel, Thg_
Theory of Social Structure, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957,
pp. 63472. The ‘impetus to this researcher's own use of the term came
from this passage.

83

counting "strands,' even if this were desired, but certainly it is pos-
sible to form a rough idea of the degree of strandedness in a relation-
ship, and to compare relationships very roughly.

Practically every aspect of the relationship was weighed in
assigning respondents to particular types of strandedness, but the two
major questions that were used were the ones concerning the activities
engaged in with the Japanese associate and the topics discussed with
the Japanese associate. The activities participated in with the Japa-
nese associate are analyzed in Table 33.

Respondents were also asked if they planned to keep up with
their Japanese associate after he had gone back to Japan. Fourteen
(39%) either did not plan to or were not sure. Sixteen (44%) planned
to write to the Japanese, thirteen (36%) were planning to visit him in
Japan, and seven planned both to write and visit Japan.

Asked whether they would want to continue their relationship
with their Japanese associate should relations between the United
States and Japan become strained, only three respondents indicated
that the personal relationship itself would be affected. Another
three did feel that the social matrix of the relationship would be
altered somewhat. Six specifically stated that they thought keeping
up the relationship would be even more important under such circum-
stances. In general, then, the respondents did not think that strained
international relations would much affect their relationship with their
Japanese associate.

Taking all the data into consideration, the researcher assigned

respondents to one of seven types of strandedness. "Type" is used here

84

TABLE 33

ACTIVITIES ENGAGED IN WITH THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATE

 

 

 

 

Type Percentage of respondents who reported they
of participated with their Japanese associate
activity in that type of activity

General discussions 100%

Academic activities 72%

Social activities 53%

Spectator events 50%

Personal discussions 47%

Drinking (at an

establishment) 28%
Entertaining at home 25%
Sports and games 25%
Eating meals together 25%*
Trips out of town 14%
Dates and double dates 11%

 

 

A

 

*This response was not listed on the interview form, but was a response
under "other." There was reason to believe, therefore, that had it
been included as a visual choice, it would have received much more
mention.

in preference to "level," because this variable is not as amenable to

ranking as are intimacy and stereotypy of response. Table 34 presents

the distribution of respondents among the various categories. Cate-

gories five and seven require some explanation.

85

TABLE 34

CATEGORIES OF STRANDEDNESS IN AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIPS

aaaaaaEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Percentage of respondents

 

Category in that category
1. Hardly any interaction 3%
2. Almost completely academic 19%
3. Almost completely residential 14%

4. Combination of academic
and residential 3%

5. Personal-social without
academic or residential base 6%

6. Academic and/or residential
with broader ramifications 31%

7. Fulsome relationship 25%

 

 

 

 

Category five (personal-social without academic or residential
base) refers to two relationships built up on the basis of seeking-out
behavior (in one case his own, in the other case by the respondent's
mother). There was no real base of academic or residential proximity,
but the relationship was maintained. In both cases, however, there is
reason to believe that the relationship was not as solid nor as likely
to be kept up after the Japanese left as relationships in categories
six and seven.

Category seven (fulsome relationship) refers to those rela-
tionships which had attained autonomy from any particular base, and

yet showed no signs of collapsing. They did not center around any

86

particular area, except perhaps at first, and they encompassed a broad
range of activities. In some cases the amount of time spent together
was less than for relationships in other categories, but the estimate
of the closeness of the relationship was always greater, and the re-
spondent invariably said he planned to maintain the relationship after
the Japanese returned to Japan.

The concepts of intimacy, stereotypy of response, and stranded-
ness, as explicated have heed to be further refined; and their opera-
tionalization needs vast improvement. Nonetheless, it is this re-
searcher's opinion that once such improvements are made, these three
concepts can provide a very meaningful and useful tool for comparing

the nature of interpersonal relationships.

F. Overview of the American-Japanese Relationships

The most outstanding feature of the American-Japanese relation-
ships was their casualness. In most cases, little attention was paid
by the American to cultural differences and their potential effect on
interaction. The respondents were not callous toward the Japanese;
they merely treated them much as they would Americans. Relationship

with a Japanese was neither a titillating nor a depressing experience
for them. The relationships were almost always personalized, not

mediated through some groups-although well-integrated.groups of Amer-

icans and Japanese ‘had sprung up in one or tv'vo places.

87

With one exception the Japanese left an overwhelmingly favor-
able impression with their American associates. Japanese generally
embody the kind of quiet, un-pushy politeness that Americans are so
drawn to in others though they seldom deliberately cultivate it them-
selves. (The one Japanese who generated American animosity appar-
ently had American-like boldness and pushiness without a native's
sense of when not to display it.) Furthermore the Japanese on campus
are usually from the upper classes of a society becoming more and more
economically successful. They have the manners, the money, the per—
sonal consideration of an elite with few traces of hauteur to tarnish
this impression. They all are eager to learn, and Americans love a
willing audience. In short, the Japanese the sample had met were most
of the things Americans like in people, and few of the things they
dislike. And the Japanese, bred from birth to a patience Americans
never seem to learn, take the brash Americans in stride. No wonder
the American-Japanese relationships are more relaxed than the Indian—

American, and more personalized than the American-European.

Chapter Six

THE SOCIAL MATRIX OF THE AMERICAN-JAPANESE RELATIONSHIP

The major thrust of the concept "third culture" is that the
phenomenon to which it refers cannot be understood in terms only of
the "parent" cultures. The content of the third culture is 222 just
a synthesis of elements found in the cultures of the persons whose
interaction forms the third culture; it is rather a cultural system
in its own right. Although it cannot be understood except in the
context of its "parent" cultures, neither can it be completely under—
stood merely through an understanding of them.57

To establish the presence of a binational third culture, then,
requires more than simply locating a group of nationals from one
country in another country. One must also demonstrate commonalities
in the interaction patterns between individuals from the two groups.
Where such commonalities exist, they may arise from overlap between
the parent cultures, or be built up gradually in interaction. When
individuals from society A move into society B and interact with them,

there is going to be a certain degree of "fit" between their expecta-

tions and those of their hosts. To the extent that the expectations

 

57John Useem, Ruth Useem, and John Donoghue, "Men in the Middle

of the Third Culture: The Roles of American and Non-Western People in
Cross Cultural Administration," Human Organization, Vol. 22, No. 3, p.
169.

88

89

dovetail, the content and outline of the third culture can be pre-
dicted from a knowledge of the parent cultures. In the lacunae
where neither parent culture provides guidelines and at the points
of conflict, however, knowledge of the parent cultures can do no
more than suggest the parameters within which the new interaction
patterns will be built up.

If persons from one culture were scattered randomly in an-
other, we would expect certain commonalities in all the subsequent
cross-cultural relationships, primarily in the areas where the cul-
tures dovetailed. In reality, of course, the distribution is never
completely random, and often the guest population is highly inter-
related, perhaps to the point of developing a sense of community.58
It is in situations of this sort that the third culture is most
visible.

Where a cross-cultural interface is supplemented with cohesive
social units, as when a guest population shares a sense of community,
normal social processes operate to provide a distinct social structur-
ing to the interface. Socialization and a set of positive and nega-
tive sanctions can be used to narrow the range of behavior in interac-
tion across the interface.

The interview schedule used in this research was not adequate
to uncover the details of the social structuring of the American-

Japanese interface at MSU. Some relevant information, however, was

 

58John Useem and Ruth Useem, "The Interfaces of a Binational

Third Culture: A Study of the American Community in India," Journal
of Social Issues, Vol. 23, No. l,(January, 1967), p. 131.

 

9O

elicited by questions designed for other purposes. The following dis-
cussion summarizes that information.

The Japanese themselves had formed into four or five distinct
and cohesive groups, with relatively little communication between
groups, but much interaction within groups. There were some (perhaps
as many as five) isolates, who seldom or never interacted socially
with other Japanese. In general, the Japanese were so scattered on
campus that they were not thrown together except by choice. Since
the Japanese themselves were not systematically interviewed, the ex-
tent of cohesion of the groups, and the number of "core" versus mar-
ginal members of those groups could not be ascertained.

The Americans, with a very few exceptions, were not integrated
into a group of Japanese. Most knew only one or two Japanese, and of
those who knew several, only two had developed personal relationships
with them all, and interacted with all of them regularly.

Although only three respondents said they knew no other Ameri-
cans who knew Japanese, the Americans who knew Japanese seldom formed
part of the same social groupings. For the most part, those who were
acquainted with the same Japanese had met them in separate contexts,
and in only a few rare cases was there a cohesive grouping of Ameri-
cans who interacted more than rarely with the same Japanese. The two
types of exceptions were some husband-wife combinations and some of
the graduate departments-~although in the latter case the Americans
whoutthe:Japanese named often were not frequent interactors themselves.

American-Japanese interaction took place almost totally in the

absence of non-Japanese foreign students. Although the Americans

91

interacted frequently with other foreign nationals, and although the
Japanese may well have done so (there was no direct evidence on this),
the interaction between Americans and Japanese only rarely took place
in a social situation which included foreign students of other nation-
alities.

From the data in Chapter Five on the time-structuring of the
American-Japanese relationship, we know that four relationships were
group-oriented, where almost all interaction between the American and
the Japanese occurred along With someone else. We also know that
only one relationship was exclusively a non-group relationship; and
that almost all relationships involved interaction with other Ameri-
cans on a more or less regular basis. In one-third of these cases,
however, there were only one or two other Americans mentioned, and
these were usually wives or roommates. Even where several other
Americans were mentioned, the American respondent seldom stated both
that he knew them well and that they all interacted with the Japanese
and him fairly often. Both these conditions were filled for fewer
than twenty per cent of the sample.

The Japanese themselves were residentially scattered, with
two concentrations. Some of the male Japanese lived together in a
house off-campus and about 40% of the Japanese lived in the graduate
dormitory. Of those in the dormitory, there were apparently two
separate groups, with some communication between them. A few Japanese
from off-campus also were members of these groups. The residential

concentration off-campus, and a group of graduate students (many of

92

whom apparently were married) who got together frequently for parties,
were fairly cohesive, and not tied too closely to any other groups.
There was evidence of one other smaller group made up of Japanese

who seldom interacted with others; and as already mentioned, there
were four or five isolates. The isolates, With one exception, were
isolates by choice--at least their American respondent so interpreted
them. The Japanese apparently were quite adept at seeking each other
out, although they were not nearly so much a monolithic in-group with
respect to Americans as were the Thai.59

Of the 85% of the Americans who were around their Japanese
associates enough to know, more than half said the Japanese was often
the only foreign student among a group of Americans. Only'three re-
spondents indicated their associate was almost never away from other
Japanese. Two-thirds said they had not noticed any reaction on the
part of the Japanese to being alone among Americans; and five respond-
ents explicitly stated that their Japanese associate preferred or
thoroughly enjoyed it that way.

Fewer than half the respondents had interacted at the same
time with their Japanese associate and with other Japanese (although
75% of the sample knew other Japanese). There was no evidence that
any two American respondents were both regular members of the same
group of Japanese. In about half the cases where the respondent in-

dicated he had participated in activities with a group of Japanese,

 

59Asch, op. cit., p. 31. Also, personal conversation with
Asch, and comments from five respondents in the present study who
knew or tried to get to know Thais.

93

the "group" was either a loosely thrown together collection of Ameri-
cans and Japanese at a party or two, or else a cohesive Japanese group
with which the respondent had once or tWice participated by virtue of
his association with one of the members.

Of the thirty-Six respondents, half interacted in groups con-
taining non-Japanese foreign students (and all but one or two had
bipersonal relationships with non-Japanese students). Most of these
were groups that the Japanese associate was not a part of. A fourth
of the respondents reported both that they had interacted with a
group containing several Japanese, and that the group also contained
non-Japanese foreign students. In only two of these cases, however,
was the non-Japanese an integral part of the group. Usually he was
someone who drifted into the group and then out again.

For the most part, the respondents were involved only part-
time with foreign students. Three-quarters of them had at most once
or twice been the only American among a group of foreign students.

The one-fourth who had been in that situation often were the most
frequent interactors with foreign students; but of these only four
spent as much as half their time in groups containing foreign students.
Even of the seven who were living with foreign students, only three
indicated that they spent much of their waking time with their room-
mates. In short, as stated earlier from other evidence, there is
little reason to believe that the sample actively sought out and pur-
sued interaction with foreign students in general or Japanese students

in particular.

94

The findings reported in earlier chapters make manifest the
uniformities in American-Japanese interaction, and thus establish it
as a third cultural situation. In addition, it would appear that the
Japanese students as a whole had a definite social structure, although
there .are no data to indicate the nature or extent of its functions for
socialization into the third cultural setting. On the other hand,
there is good evidence that the Americans who knew the Japanese were
ng_socially cohesive. They had no common sources of information
about appropriahe behavior for interaction with the Japanese, no com-
munication channels to facilitate interaction among themselves, no
mutual awareness of themselves as a distinct social category. In
short, the sources of the American-Japanese third culture examined
here included both parent cultures and possibly the social structure
of the Japanese students, but certainly not any separate social struc—

ture comprising the Americans who knew the Japanese.

 

Chapter Seven
THE EFFECTS OF RESPONDENTS' INTERACTION
WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS
The respondents were asked several questions about any changes
in their thinking or planning which had resulted from their interac-
tion with foreign students. Table 35 indicates the extent to which
they had changed their outlook on the countries of the foreign students

they had gotten to know.

TABLE 35

RESPONDENTS' CHANGES OF OUTLOOK ON THE COUNTRIES
FROM WHICH THEY HAD MET FOREIGN STUDENTS

 

 

Percentage of respondents

 

Type of change who reported that type of
change
No real change 22%
Increase in factual knowledge only 17%
Change in attitude of some sort 61%

More interest in or understanding
of the country and/or its people* 31%

Destruction of stereotypes held
of the country and/or its people* 19%

 

 

 

*These subcategories are neither mutually excluSive nor exhaustive.

95

 

96

The incidence of attitude change about other countries con-
trasts sharply with the incidence of change of outlook upon America.
Table 36 shows the responses to the question, "How has the way you
feel about American society been affected by your contacts with

foreign students?"

TABLE 36

RESPONDENTS' CHANGES IN ATTITUDE ABOUT AMERICA RESULTING FROM CONTACT
WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS

 

 

Percentage of respondents

 

Type of change who reported that type of
change
No real change 58%

Broadened perspective (without

reference to attitude change as such) 22%
Less favorable 11%
More favorable 8%

 

 

The pattern exhibited in Table 36 seems to be similar to the
changes in opinion about various other topics. Table 37 lists the
other topics about which respondents were asked if they had changed
their opinions, and the types of changes they listed.

Looking at the data from Tables 35, 36, and 37, we see that
outside of their opinions of the foreign countries the respondents
met people from, they tended not to change their attitudes. Aside
from their ideas about other countries, and about themselves, at no

time did more than 20% of the respondents report an about-face,

 

97

TABLE 37

EFFECTS OF INTERACTION WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS ON RESPONDENTS' OPINIONS
ON VARIOUS TOPICS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broadened Definite attitude
. No real perspective change: direction
Topic or additional to
change . . .
information Same Different
only
Race 78% ' 8% 3% 11%
Religion 83% 3% 8% 6%
U.S. foreign
policy 72% 6% 3% 19%*
Economic systems 67% 11% 6% 17%*
Family
relationships 75% 17% 8% 0%
Dating and
marriage 78% 11% 3% 8%
Political systems 75% 3% 6% 17%
Self-concept 56% I 19%** 11% 14%
i

 

*Includes those who merely stated specific changes they would have
liked to see.

**Represents those who noted a real change in themselves, not merely
changed their impression of themselves.
however small, in their attitudes. The data suggest two reasons for
the general absence of reported attitude change.
In the first place, a large proportion of the sample were
graduate students, and almost all of them had had some, if not exten-

sive, contact with foreign nationals before; many had been overseas.

 

98

It does not seem unusual, then, that these pe0ple should not have been
greatly affected by what would have been to them essentially extensions
of past experience. In the second place, the relationships most of the
sample had had with foreign students were at the first level of inti-
macy, and only four gave any evidence that they had ever gone beyond
the second level of intimacy with any foreign person, much less a
foreign student at MSU.

Those who appeared to have become closest to foreign students
accounted for the largest number of changes recorded in Table 37. The
eleven respondents who reported four or more changes of opinion in—
cluded the majority of respondents whose relationships were assessed
to be at the second or third intimacy level, and most of the respon-
dents whose relationships were assessed to be.fulsome. It is not un-
reasonable to expect that persons interacting only minimally with for-
eign persons (or any other groups) would show only minimal effects
from the interaction. Perhaps one might have expected a larger pro-
portion to report at least changes in the breadth of perspective; but
respondents showed throughout the interview a desire to leave the im-
pression that association with foreign students was not really all
Ehap different from association with anybody else. This propensity
may have caused them to gloss over real changes that might have been
uncovered in a more thorough interview.

Regarding changes in their future plans resulting from contact
with foreign students, fourteen respondents said there had been none,

and ten said there had been only additions to or changes in the

99

itinerary of travel already planned or hoped for. One-third did show
major alterations in their plans for the future. Of these twelve, six
definitely had decided to travel who before had never thought about it
or were undecided; two planned to go into the Peace Corps; and four
definitely changed their future work plans, three of these stating
they would now like to live in Japan and work there. Those indicating
the greatest changes were usually the respondents who had gotten to,
know their Japanese associate best.

Respondents were asked three questions about their overall im-

pression of their contact with foreign students. First they were asked
what they thought they had gained from it. Table 38 shows the most fre-

quent responses.

TABLE 38

RESPONDENTS' GAINS FROM THEIR INTERACTION WITH FOREIGN STUDENTS

 

 

Percentage of respondents
What gained * who said they had gained
that

 

Factual knowledge of some kind about
a (some) foreign country (countries) 42%

A broadened perspective on the world 42%

A broadened perspective about people
in general 24%

Understanding of self, or personal

growth 17%
The relationship itself 33%
Nothing 8%

 

 

 

 

. *The categories are not mutually exclusive.

100

The large number of respondents who indicated they had gained
something from the interaction with foreign students was supplemented
by an almost equally large number who said there were no disadvantages
to the interaction: twenty-nine or 81% said there were no disadvant-
ages. Of the seven who mentioned a disadvantage, four explicitly
stated that it was inconsequential. The three respondents who men-
tioned the greatest disadvantages were all persons who had gotten to
know some foreign students fairly well.

Finally, the respondents were asked if they wished they had
had more contact with foreign students during the time they had been
at MSU. Two-thirds said yes, and one-third said no. Of those who
wished they had had more contact, half explained that schoolwork and
lack of time in general had prevented more interaction; and half
stated either that they just hadn't met that many, or that they hadn't
taken the trouble to search them out, or both. Whether or not a re-
spondent desired more contact did not seem to be related to any other
variable.

The overall impression left with the researcher is that con-
flicting values were tugging at most of the respondents. They wanted
to give the impression that foreign students and relationships with
them are not much different from Americans and "ordinary" relation-

ships. At the same time, many of them seemed to have been "turned on"

by their relationships with one or more foreign students, and thought
they were good. While for some respondents one value predominated

sufficiently to make answers consistent, most of the respondents were

101

caught in the middle. These latter tended on one hand to play down
the actual differences in the relationship, but on the other hand to

speak of it as an important, meaningful experience.

Chapter Eight

SUGGESTED FUTURE RESEARCH

As we stated initially, this research was conceived and exe-
cuted as an exploratory study. The following suggestions, then are
not offered as ways to "improve" what was done here, but as ways to
take advantage of the insights this study provided.

The type of investigation utilized here could be broadened to
examine thoroughly two aspects of the cross-cultural interaction situ-
ation: the nature of the interpersonal relationships involved, and
the sociometric patterns of relationships among those persons con-
tained in a particular binational interface. This study hardly
scratched the surface of the latter aspect, and covered only a segment
of the former. A thorough extension of the present research could in-

clude the following:

(1) A comparison of American-American, American-Japanese, and
Japanese-Japanese relationships in terms of time-structuring,
intimacy, individuation, and strandedness. (An even broader
study, of course, would examine and compare the analogous sets
of relationships across other binational and perhaps multina-
tional interfaces.) The contrasts and similarities between

modal relationship types in these sets should provide much

102

103

deeper insight into and theoretical grasp of the total inter-

action process.

(2) A comparison of the sociometric patterns of American—American,
American-Japanese, and Japanese-Japanese relationship struc-
tures. Also, the relationship structure among the Americans
in the American-Japanese interface could be compared with the
relationship structures among Americans in other interfaces,

and among Americans in general.

(3) A search for connections between relationship structures and
modal relationship types. To the extent that such connections
exist, we would gain both predictive capability and explana—
tory power in the analysis of third cultures and other cross-

cultural interaction settings.

Such an extensive research project would require much more in-
terviewing, of course. First of all, the total interface population
should be interviewed--not only the Americans best known by Japanese,
but the Japanese themselves and the numerous other Americans the Japa-
nese know, but not so well. Depth interviews to ascertain modal rela-
tionship types would be necessary only in a sample, but the total pop-
ulation would need to be surveyed to determine accurately the rela-
tionship structure. If more than one binational interface were being
investigated, even more thorough examination of relationship struc-
tures would provide a measure of the overlap in the American popula-

tions of the various interfaces.

104

To provide data on American-American relationships and rela-
tionship structures, a sample of American students matched to a foreign
student population with regard to gender, marital status, academic
level, major, type of residence, and length of time at MSU (or other
institution), should be used as a base. Each of these could then be
asked the names of American students they know, and the whole set of
persons could be interviewed in the fashion suggested above for a bi-
national interface.

Comparative use of the data obtained in all the suggested in-
terviewing would provide a much better understanding of the processes

which underlie cross-cultural interaction.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Asch, Susan M. "The Friendship Roles of American Associates of Thai
Students on a Midwestern Campus: Implications for a New Bi-
national Third Culture," unpublished M.A. thesis, Department
of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1968.

Borck, Howard E. "Interaction of American Students with Western Euro-
pean Students at a Mid-Western University," unpublished M.A.
thesis, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University,
1966.

Handbook of International Study. New York: Institute of Interna-
tional Education, 1958.

Ikeda, Kiyoshi, Harry V. Ball, and Douglas S. Yamanura. "Ethnocul-
tural Factors in Schizophrenia among the Japanese in Hawaii,"
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68, no. 2 (September,
1962). pp. 242—248.

 

Judy, Jerry N. "Interaction of American Students with Indian Students
at a Mid-Western University," unpublished M.A. thesis, Depart-
ment.of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1967.

Kroeber, A. L. "The Ancient Oikoumene as a Historic Culture Aggre-
gate," in A. L. Kroeber, The Nature of Culture.. Chicago:
the University of Chicago Press, 1952.

 

McNeill, W. H. The Rise of the West. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1963.

 

Nadel, S. F. The Theory of Social Structure. Glencoe, Illinois:
The Free Press, 1957.

Shaffer, Robert H., and Leo R. Dowling. "Foreign Students and their
American Student Friends," Indiana University, Bloomington,
1966 (unpublished).

Shearer, Roberta. "A Comparative Study of American Graduate Student

Friends of Foreign Students," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Department of Education, University of Indiana, 1965.

105

106

Useem, John, and Ruth Useem. "The Interfaces of a Binational Third
Culture: A Study of the American Community in India,"
Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 23, no. 1 (January, 1967),
pp. 130-143.

Useem, John, Ruth Useem, and John Donoghue. "Men in the Middle of
the Third Culture: The Roles of American and Non-Western
Peoples in Cross-Cultural Administration," Human Organiza-
tion, Vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 169-179.

 

Appendix A

DETAILS OF METHOD AND PROCEDURES

Appendix A

DETAILS OF METHOD AND PROCEDURES

In January, 1968, a list was obtained from the Foreign
Student Office at Michigan State University which contained the
name, gender, academic level, major, birthdate, and local residence
of each Japanese from the primary islands known by the Foreign
Student Office to be a student at MSU. Okinawan students were not
included in order to reduce the number of Japanese and therefore
the size of the American population. It later became apparent that
this decision had restricted the foreign students involved to a
fairly homogeneous grouping, and therefore permitted investigation
of a single, fairly self-contained binational interface. The pri-
mary islands include Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku.

In late February each of the Japanese students was traced to
his current address. The Foreign Student Office list contained sev-
eral names of students who had left MSU prior to winter term, 1968.
Of forty-two Japanese students named on the list, there remained
twenty-eight in attendance at MSU. Five had returned to Japan,
seven had other addresses in the United States (of whom five had

addresses at another university), and two had gone to Europe.

108

109

Each of the twenty-eight Japanese students still at MSU was
reached by telephone during the period between February 21 and March
27. The researcher explained himself as follows:

My name is Pat Terry. I am a graduate student in

sociology. For my Master's degree thesis I am doing re-
search in cross-cultural relations. Specifically, I plan
to interview Americans who know Japanese students. But
to find out who these Americans are, I have to find out
from the Japanese students which Americans they know.
Would you be willing to help me by telling me the names
of American.MSU students you know well? If so, I'll be
glad to take the names now over the telephone; or, if
you prefer, I'll be glad to meet you somewhere at your
convenience."

In some cases it was necessary to give further explanation;
at times, because the Japanese did not quite understand the nature
of the request; at other times, because the Japanese was sufficiently
familiar with research to want to know more of what the project was
about. If there seemed to be hesitation, the Japanese was reassured,
first, that his own name would not be used in any way, nor any Ameri-
can told who had named him; and second, that the Americans would not
be pressured into being interviewed.

There was no instance of obvious non-cooperation; that is,
no Japanese flatly refused to help. There were three instances, fol-
lowing the request to name American MSU students he knew well, in
which a Japanese said that he did not know any. Two of the Japanese
who said they knew none were relatively new female students, who well
may not have known any American students by name. One of thoSe who
said he knew none was a fourth term male graduate student, however,

and he may have been politely refusing to cooperate. The remaining

twenty-five Japanese seemed in general eager to help.

llO

Often a Japanese would list a few names, and then ask how
many were wanted. The response was uniformly that a list of 311‘
Americans the Japanese knew well was desired. In some cases the
Japanese would ask, "You mean friends?" to which the response was
always that friends' names were wanted, but also names of Americans
he knew well who were not friends. A list of eighty-five names was
obtained. The fewest names listed by any Japanese was none; the most
was eight. The median number given was three.

When all the Japanese had been reached, the list of names
they had mentioned was checked against the records of the University
switchboard to make certain of identities and current addresses. Of
the total of eighty-five names, eight were duplications. Of the
seventy-seven persons named, one was a faculty member, one was a
Canadian, and one had not been listed as an MSU student during the
1967-68 school year. There were therefore a total of seventy-four
persons in the population of the study. Three of these seventy-four
left the MSU area following winter term; although they were consid-
ered a part of the population, they were not available for inclusion
in a sample. One individual graduated from MSU winter term, but re-
mained in the area, and was thus available for the sample.

Following the certification of the population, a sample was
chosen. Initially a random sample of thirty was chosen from the
seventy-one persons in the population still available for interview-
ing. Each person had as many chances to be chosen as there were

Japanese who had given that individual's name.

111

Because the other five studies in the project had been based
on a stratified sample, additional persons were chosen to fill out
the under-represented cells in the stratification scheme. The addi-
tional persons for each cell were chosen randomly from among those
in the corresponding cell in the population breakdown. Stratifica-
tion was by sex, marital status, and type of local residence.

Originally, the plan had been to treat the data from the
random sample as primary; but an examination of the data showed
that the stratified random sample was much more representative of
the population than the purely random sample on all characteristics
for which information was available for the population. The strati-
fied sample was therefore used as E22 sample for the study. The
sample contained all five persons who had been named by more than
one Japanese.

The first Japanese contacted during the initial calling was
deliberately chosen to be one who had been at MSU several years (as
determined by his student number). This student graciously responded
to a request for information on the pronunciation of Japanese names,
and insight into the best way to approach the other Japanese the
researcher would be calling.

Three other Japanese assisted the researcher by allowing
themselves to be interviewed about their experiences in America and
their reactions to their experiences and to Americans in general.
One of these was recruited by direct request, the other two through

an American friend of the researcher. These three interviews were

112

held before any of the sample were interviewed, and were designed in
part to give the researcher some general feel for interaction with
Japanese. Later experience WIth the sample demonstrated the value
of these interviews for orienting the researcher to the Significance
of remarks by the Americans about their interaction with Japanese.

It had also been hoped to follow these three interviews
with similar interviews of several other Japanese--to provide a basis
for comparison of Americans' and Japanese' perceptions of their mu-
tual interaction. The amount of time available for interviewing did
not permit this, unfortunately. Furthermore, the answers of the
three Japanese interviewed did not demonstrate any sizeable contrast
with American assessments of American-Japanese interaction. There-
fore, the Japanese interviews are not discussed in this report.

Two earlier generations of research similar in design to
this study, but uSing different nationalities of foreign students,
have been done in the same overall project. An interview schedule
was inherited from the earlier studies, and recommended for use to
insure some degree of comparability. The questions in the inherited
schedule (which was the second revision of the original schedule)
were carefully examined; and a few that had been of little or no
worth in the earlier studies were eliminated. One question (68;
see Appendix B) was thoroughly reconstructed in order to make it
more suited for eliciting information relevant to the intimacy di-
mension of the American-Japanese relationship. A large number of
questions designed to uncover the group matrix within which the

American and his Japanese associate interacted were added.

113

The preliminary schedule was pro-tested on a friend of the
researcher who knew some Japanese, and on several other persons,
all of whom knew at least one foreign student. Follow1ng pro-testing,
questions which seemed awkward, or which did not appear to elicit the
information they were designed to obtain, were reworded. A few ques-
tions which did not appear problematic in the pro-testing developed
difficulties under the actual interViewing. Such questions were
usually changed at the point where their inadequacy became obVious.
These few changes are detailed in Appendix B.

When the researcher was prepared to start intervieWing,
letters were sent out to the sample which introduced the researcher,
briefly explained the study and mentioned that he would telephone
soon about an interview appointment. (A copy of this letter is on
the last page of this appendix.) Each person in the sample was
reached by telephone within four days after the letter had been sent
to him. An initial group of ten letters was sent out all at once;
following the establishment of appointments with those ten persons,
the remaining letters were sent out three to five at a time over the
next three weeks, timed to permit scheduling of interview appointments
approximately seven days in advance.

Since it was obvious that the interViewing would continue
into the summer, persons most likely to leave the MSU area during
the summer (single undergraduates) were interviewed first. If a
graduate student or married undergraduate student showed some hesi-

tancy due to time pressure, he was asked if he would be in the MSU

114

area over the summer; and if he indicated he would be, an interview
appointment was scheduled for the summer. Nine (25%) of the inter-
views were done after the end of classes, spring term. Of these, all
but four were completed in June, 1968, and the remainder were com-
pleted in July or the first week of August. All thirty—six initially
chosen in the sample were interviewed. None refused to be inter-
viewed, and none moved out of reach.

The intervieWing was done in a variety of settings, depending
upon the convenience of the respondent. Half (18) were done in one
or another of three offices available to the researcher for his in-
terviewing; fourteen were done in the room or apartment or office of
the respondent. One was done in the researcher's apartment, one in
the apartment of the respondent's brother, and two in combinations
of the above (these two had multiple seSSions.) Seven of the inter-
views required more than one session. Four of these were deliber-
ately scheduled in that fashion upon the request of the respondents,
each of whom had no single block of time sufficient to complete the
entire interview. The other three multiple sessions occurred with
respondents who had had a large amount of experience with foreign
students, and had more information than was obtainable in the
amount of time originally scheduled for the interview.

Six of the interviews were done under circumstances which
cast some degree of doubt on the validity of their contents. In two
interviews, the respondent was suspicious and/or wary of the re-

searcher, and did not relax until the interview was more than half

115

over. In the other four cases, one or more persons were present
during part of the interview. In one of these cases, a somewhat
inebriate respondent was accompanied by his wife, who sat silent in
the same room during the last third of the interview. In another
case, the respondent's wife was present through the majority of the
interview, but mostly ignored the respondent and researcher. In a
third case, the presence of the foreign student office-mate of the
respondent during portions of the interview required asking questions
out of order, to prevent asking those which might have had their
answers influenced by the presence of a foreign student. Finally,
one interview was done in the hearing of the respondent's brother
and brother's family, and had to be accomplished amid family chit—
chat, a couple of arguments, and children's interruptions. Since
this particular interView had been the most difficult to arrange,

and would possibly not have been possible to arrange at a later time,
such crumbs as were offered were gratefully accepted.

Interviews ranged in length from one hour and twenty-five
minutes to seven hours and thirty minutes. In general, the length
of the interview was roughly proportional to the amount of useful
information imparted; although one respondent in particular was
inanely garrulous.

Immediately following each interview assessments of the in-
terview situation, the respondent in general, and the respondent's
involvement with foreign students were written by the researcher.

These assessments were later to prove extremely useful in coding

some of the data.

116

Where categories of answers were not obviously exhaustive,

a series of categories of answers to a question was made up from the

actual answers given by the sample. Most of the work with
was therefore in the nature of content analysis. There is
tee of absolute precision and reproducibility. Since this
exploratory in nature, however, such rough categories were
to the task undertaken, and will serve well to help in the
of a series of forced-choice questions similar to the ones

study.

the data
no guaran-
study was
adequate
creation

in this

117

Below is a copy of the letter sent to each of the sample.

Dear (Mr. Miss Mrs.) .

 

For my thesis research, I'm working on a project in con-
nection with the Institute of International Studies in Education
here at MSU. The project is set up to investigate the interaction
between American students and foreign students. My research in-
volves interviewing a sample of American MSU students.

You are one of the students I would like to interview.
Sometime within a week, I will call you to see about arranging
an interview appointment at a time and place convenient for you.

I want to assure you that all of the interview will be
completely confidential. Your name will not be attached to any
of your answers, nor will you be mentioned anywhere at any time
as having taken part in this project. The results of the research
I am doing will be summarized in statistics and tables.

Your help and cooperation will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Pat Terry
365933

Appendix B

THE INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

119

INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Patterson Tergy
Page One.

W

First, I'd like to get some general background information.

1. (Sex) (I) Male__ (2) Female___

2. What is your date of birth?

 

3a. Are you married or single?
(If single) Are you engaged or pinned?
(if neither) Are you dating anyone steadily?
(l) single _;_ (2) married
(3) engaged or pinned ___ (Hy—dating steadily.__

36. Do both you and your come from the same
type of background?
(if no, probe for types and amount of difference.)
(0i) no difference (02) Nationality ___
(03) religion __ T54) socio-economic status __
(05) pre-marital residence __. (06) education.__
(07) geOQraphic area within U.S..__
(l2) does not apply

A. What is your academic level?
(I) freshman __ (2) sophomore (3) junior __
(A) senior _ (5) master's___ '(6) doctoral __

5. What is your major?

 

7. What is your father's present occupation?

8a. What is your mother's present occupation?

8b. When during her life has your mother worked, and in
what occupations?

3a.

3b.

8a.

8b.

120

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Two.

Be. What nationalities does your family come from?

9b. Would you give me a brief description of the
neighborhood you grew up in?

IO. How much has your background affected your interest
in different foreign peOples?
(l) important‘__ (2) no appreciable influence‘__
(3) rejection of background__

(For any answer, probe why.)

ll. Where were you born?

l2. Would you give me a brief run-down on where you
have lived since then, and how long you lived in
each place?
(Obtain sizes of places lived in longest.)

l3. Have you ever been outside the continental
United States?
(If yes)
a. Which countries have you been in?

9a.

9b.

IO.

12.

13a.

121

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Three.

l3. Continued.

b. When were you there? (year and academic l3b.
level both)

d. How long did you stay? l3d.

c. Why did you go there? I36.

e. Did this have an effect on your interest in l3e.

foreign students?
(If yes, probe for what effect; why that effect.)

lh. I'd like to give you a list of other possible contacts,
direct and indirect, that you may have had with foreign
countries or foreign peeple before you came to college.
Please tell me which, if any, of them were important
in making you aware of or interested in foreign peeple
and places. (i) yes (2) no

a. books, movies, newspapers, TV, radio Iha.
b. school projects and/or extracurricular activities lhb.
c. personal contact with foreign persons in the lhc.

United States

122

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Four.

Ill. Continued.

d. persons In your family who talked about foreign lhd._____
experiences
e. persons not in your family who talked about foreign lhe.
experiences
f. church related activities lhfz_____
9. work related activities ‘ Ihg.
h. independent interests lhh._____.
i. living abroad lhi._____.
j. other lhj.______
l5. (If apprOpriate) Which of the contacts you have l5.._____

mentioned do you consider to have been most important?
(Record letters)

(Probe: how and why were they so important?)

123

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Five.

l6. Are there any specific countries you are particularly
interested in?

(If yes)

a. Which ones? l6a.
b. Why are you interested in them? l6b.
c. When did you become interested in them? l6c.

FOREIGN STUDENTS IN GENERAL

Now I'd like to ask you some questions about your interaction with
foreign students since you came to Michigan State.

l7.How many foreign students do you know? 17.
(0) none (I) l-2 ("a couple”) __.
(2) 3-3 )(7'; few“) __ (3) 9-l0 ("several',' "quite a
f I
(ll) II-ZO : (5) 2I-30 __ (6) 3I-50 _
(7) 5l-60 __ (8) 6|- __

l8.How did you get to know the foreign students you know? l8.

124

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Six.

I9. Have you ever lived with a foreign student?
(If yes, probe: what effects did this have?)

ass. 00 you correspond with any foreign students?
(If yes, probe for beginnings, duration, frequency,
topics corresponded about, closeness.)

20. Here Is a list*0f:somc.different things people might
: do together. Would you please tell me which of them
you do with the foreign students you know? (I) yes (2)
a. participate In sports

c. attend campus events
d. academic activities
e. social activities

f. dating, double-dating
g. drinking

h. visiting out of town, traveling, trips

I9.

20b.

no
20a.

20c.

20d.

20e.

20f.

209.

20h.

125

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Seven.

20. Continued.

27.

28.

i. religious activities

j. family activities

k. general discussions, bull sessions
I. work

n. discussing personal matters, counseling

p. nothing

r. other

How much time do you usually spend with foreign
students during a month?

How do your parents feel about your association
with foreign students?

(If they don't know about it) How would they feel
if they did know?

(0) don't know.__ (I) indifferent, don't mind‘__

(2) approve __ (3) disapprove.__
(h) varies with nationality,__

(5) OK if no marriage __D

(If either 3, h, or 5, probe for why)

20: ._

20].

20k.

20].

20n.

20p.

20r.

27.

28.

126

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Eight.

2Ia. Every now and then, everyone runs into situations 2la.
where they feel uncomfortable. Can you remember
times when you felt uncomfortable when you were
with foreign students?
(If yes) What happened?

Why did you feel uncomfortable?

2lb. What did you do about the situation? 2lb.

2Ic. Are there any demands foreign students make on you 2Ic.
that American students wouldn't make?
(If yes) What are they?

22. Now I want to give you a list of ways Americans
sometimes feel responsible toward foreign students.
Wbuld you please tell me which of these responsibilities
you feel toward foreign students, but not toward
American students?
(I) yes (2) no
a. be friendly 22a.

b. explain different aspects of American life 22b.

127
TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Nine.

22. Continued.

c. be generous with time and money

d. be courteous host

e. help in personal matters

f. explain language usage

9. introduce them to other Americans

h. help with their studies

i. other

230

the University.)

What countries do the foreign students come from
that you associate with most often here at MSU?
(If Japanese are not mentioned, be sure to ask if
they know a Japanese in any way connected with

22c._____

22d.

22e.

22f.

229.

22h.

22i.

65
m

l

O
U

128

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Ten.

24. Are there any reasons why yOu associate with 2h.
students from those countries more than students
from other countries?
(If yes) What are they?

25a. If you had your choice, which nationality groups 25a.
would you prefer to associate with most often?
(Before asking this question, give them
nationalities card, and explain it.)

25b. Why would you prefer to associate with people from 25b.
these countries?

26a. Again, if you had your choice, which national groups 26a.
would you least like to associate with?

26b. Why would you prefer to associate less with peOpIe 26b.
from these countries?

 

129
TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Eleven.

29a. How do you think most Americans react to friendships

29a.
between Americans and foreign students?
(0) don't know‘__ (I) favorable
(2) unfavorable __ (3) indiffereh-E) __

Why do you think they have that reaction?

29b. Are there any countries which would be an exception 29b.
to that?

(If yes) Which ones? Why would they be exceptions?

30a. How do you personally feel about American students 30a.
having foreign student friends?
(0) don't know (I) favorable.__

(2) unfavorable: (3) indifferent__

Why do you feel that way?

130

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page TWelve.

30b. Are there any countries which would be an exception 30b.
to that? ""—
(If yes) Which ones? Why would they be exceptions?

3Ia. How do you think most Americans react to American 3ia.
students dating foreign students?
(0) don't know'__ (i) favorable .__
(2) unfavorable ___ (3) indifferent.__
How about dating romantically, possibly thinking
of marriage?

Why do you think they react that way?

3lb. Are there any countries which would be an exception 3ib.

to that?
(If yes) Which ones? Why would they be exceptions?

131

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thelve.

32a. How do you personally feel about American students 32a.
dating foreign students?
(0) don't know _ (l) favorable __
(2) unfavorable ___ (3) indifferent ___
How about dating romantically, possibly thinking of
marriage?

Why do you feel that way?

32d. Are there any countries which would be an exception 32d.
to that?
(If yes) Which ones? Why would they be exceptions?

32b. Would you personally consider marrying someone from 32b.
another country?

I ill ll. III “11": . ll . ,

132

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirteen.

32c. Are there any countries which would be an exception 32c.
to that? """"""’
(If yes) Which ones? May would they be exceptions?

INTERACTION WITH A PARTICULAR FOREIGN STUDENT

This portion of the questionnaire is designed only for those I interview
who know Japanese students here at HSU. Do you know any Japanese students
on campus, even if just slightly? (If no, probe to make sure they aren't
neglecting a graduate student instructor, or something else like that.)

In answering questions in this section, I want you to keep in mind the
one Japanese student that you think you know best. I don't want to
know his or her name; but be sure to keep only him or her in mind as
you answer these questions.

33. First I'd like to get some general information
about this Japanese student.
b. What sex Is she or he? (I) male __ (2) female___ 33b.

 

c. hhat is his/her age? 33c.

d. Is he/she single or married? 33d.
(0) don't kn0w__ (l) single __ (2) married _

e. mereabouts does he/she live? 33e.
(0) don't know__ (I) on campus __
(2) off campus __ (3) married housing __

f. What is his/her academic level? 33f.

(0) don't know___ (I) undergraduate _
(2) graduate _

9. What is his/her major? 33g.

a Q.‘.

133

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Fourteen.

33.

Continued.
i. Could you tell me whereabouts in Japan he/she
comes from?

j. How well off is his/her family?

k. Aside from the things you've already told me,
how would you describe this person as a person?

3h. How long have you known this Japanese student?

35.

36.

87.

How did you get to know him/her?

How would you describe the relationship between
the two of you?

How do you think he/she sees the relationship?

33i%_____

335-

33k.____

3’40

35.

360

87.

GIVE

CARD

134

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Fifteen.

62.

Is your with this person different
because he/she is a foreign student?

(If yes) How is it different? Why is it different
in those ways?

To approach from a slightly different angle, here is
a list of some of the ways that Americans sometimes
act differently around foreign students from the way
they usually act around American students. Do you
act differently around your Japanese
in any of these ways, compared to the way you
usually act around your American
(l) yes (2) no

a. explains the English language

 

 

b. more careful and conscious of communication

c. converse in language of the foreign student

d. more polite (both in sense of formality and
of patience)

e. more blunt

f. more pro-American

g. explain American customs and University rules

62.

 

135

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Sixteen.

44.

37.

Continued.

h.

(If
a.

overlook certain behavior

help foreign students financially

avoid certain tOpics of conversation

other

Japanese is of the Opposite sex.)
Is there any romantic interest on your part?
(i) yes _-_-_ .(2) no __;_ (3) not'applicable _

Is there any romantic interest on the part of
your , so far as you know?
(l) yes __ (2) no __ (3) not applicable __

(If yes to either or both questions, probe for
conflicts and irritations.)

##h.

hhk.

37a.

37b.

136

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Seventeen.

38. How'much do you know about your family?

(If not brought out) Have you ever met them?

55. Do you feel your Japanese treats you
differently from the way he/she treats other American
students? (I) yes __ (2) no __

(If yes) How does he/she treat you differently?
Why do you think he/she does that?

57. How well do you think your knows you?

83a. How has your relationship with this Japanese student
changed since you first met him/her?

83b. Can you think of any specific situations or events
that helped to break the ice between the two of you?

38.

56.

57.

 

83a.

83b.

137

TERRY INTERVIEW’SCHEDULE - Page Eighteen.

83c. Was there ever anything else that strongly affected
your relationship in some way or other?

C\

C)

Now I'd like for you to try to compare yourself to

your Japanese

b.

C.

in a few ways.

First, would you say it is easier or harder for
someone to get acquainted with your Japanese
than with you?

 

 

-knows you. Would your Japanese

How easy would you say it is for someone to
get acquainted with you?

Does your confide more or less in
you than you confide in him/her?

If both you and your Japanese knew
some other person fairly well, which of you would
probably tell this person more about your personal
life?

Now let's approach it from the other direction.
Suppose some American student knows you almost
exactly as well as your Japanese

 

 

or your American be more likely to
tell you his personal problems and bring other
personal matters to you?

 

What kinds of things do you consider to be
personal matters?

83c.

68a.

68b.

68c.

68d.

68e.

68f.

138
TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Nineteen.
68. Continued.

9. What kinds of things does your Japanese 689.
consider to be personal matters?

 

 

39. I want to give you back this list of activities 39.
you looked at a while ago. Which of these do you
and youerapanese ga- do when.you aren'

 

with other peOpIe? (Just record them.) -

ho. Which of them do you do along with other peeple? ho.

86. How much time would you say the two of you spend 86.
together? "“"

8Ia. 0f the time you spend together, do you spend more 8la.

by yourselves informally - like discussing, walking
around, driving around, etc.; or do you spend more
at scheduled events - like concerts, parties,
movies, etc.? Why?

 

a-..

 

139

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty.

8lb.

8Ic.

80a.

80b.

80c.

80d.

80e.

80f.

0f the time you are with other people, do you spend
more informally, like in bull sessions; or at
scheduled events? Why?

Do you do things more often with a group of friends
or pretty much by yourselves? Why?

Do the two of you spend any time in a group that
has other Japanese in it?

(If yes)
What activities does the group have?

Which of these activities do you and your

 

participate in?

How much time do the two of you spend with this
group?

Does either of you spend much time with this group
when the other is not there too?

Does this group have any foreign students in it
besides Japanese?
(If yes) What other nationalities are included?

8lb.

8lc.

80a.

80b.

80c.

80d.

80e.

80f.

140

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty-One.

809. How many of each nationality does the group have in it? 809.

88. Do the two of you belong to any other groups that have 88.
foreign students in them?
(if yes, probe for composition, activities, amount
of time with the group.)

89. Do you personally belong to any groups that have 89.
foreign students in them, that your Japanese '

does not belong to?

(If yes, probe for composition, activities,

amount of time with group, why he is a member and

Japanese is not.)

 

90. (If apprOpriate) Do you act differently in these 90.
different groups, or do you act the same in all of them?
(If differently, probe for how and why in each case.)

141

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thenty-Tho.

9i. Do you ever find yourself the only American in a group SI.

of foreign students?
(If yes, probe for reaction, frequency, circumstances.)

92. Is your Japanese often the only foreign
student In an otherwise American group?
(If yes, probe for his reaction, the frequency,

circumstances.)

GIVE hi. Now i'd like to give you axlist of things you might
CARD #2. possibly avoid doing with someone. Would you
please tell me which of them you would avoid doing

 

with yOur Japanese ? (l) Yes

(2) NO._____

(Probe why on each one.)
hi. a. take to parents' home bla.
b. invite to home on campus hlb.

c. participate in or watch sports together hlc.

. 0..

142

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page TWenty-Three.

hi. Continued.

d.

go to a movie

eat out

take to a party of Americans

date or double-date

become seriously involved personally

s tudy i ng toge the r

participating together in religious activities

activities where only persons of his nationality
are participating

other

“Id.

#Ie.

h'f.

Wig.

#lh.

hij

hlm.

hln.

hlo.

143

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty-Four.

82. Do the two of you haVe any interest in common that

#5.

#6.

have not been brought out in the interview so far?

One of the things I am interested in is the problem

areas that arise from time to time between American

and foreign students.

a. What things seem to produce friction or 45a.
disagreement between you and your Japanese

 

(Probe each one for why.)

b. What do you do when problems arise in these areas? 45b.

(If there is no area of friction.) Do you purposefully #6.

avoid areas that you think might cause friction or
disagreement?

144

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty-Five.

#7.

1.3.

#9 .

Do you think there are some things about yourself
that bother your ?

(If yes) What are they?

What clues do you have that they bother him/her?
Why do you think they bother him/her?

How do you usually handle these things that bother
him/her?

Now I'd like to turn to your conversations with
your . What kinds of things do you
usually talk about with him/her?
(Probe gently to get everything.)

47.

48.

49.

‘IIIIEII‘I‘II‘I

145

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page TWenty-Six.

50. Sometimes particular subjects are sensitive spots,
and don't get talked about much for that reason.

a. Are there any subjects you can't talk freely 50a.

with your about?

(If yes) What are they?

(Probe for differences between public and
private situations.)

b. Are there any criticisms of Japanese society 50b.
which can not or are not brought out in your
conversations?

c. Are there any of these tapics you have mentioned 50c.

which you would also hesitate to discuss with
an American?

5i. What tOpics do you feel your is hesitant 5|.
to bring up?

146

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thenty-Seven.

52a. Are there any tOpics you prefer he not bring up? 52a.
(If yes) What are they?

52b. Does he ever bring these tOpics up? 52b.

53. Can you think of times when your said 53.
or did something in a way which made other people
around him unc0mfortabie?
(If yes) What was it he said or did?
Why do you think it made peOple uncomfortable?

 

54. Can you think of times when your said or 54.
did something in a way which made xgg’feel uncomfort-
able?

(If yes) What was it he said or did?
Why did it make you uncomfortable?

147

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty-Eight.

55. Have you ever told your that his 55.
behavior did not fit in with American customs?

55a. How did you get the point across? 55a.
55c. Where was it you told him this? 55c.
55b,d. Why did you pick that time and place to do it? 55b

55d-
55e. Did he get the point? 55e.
55f. Did this particular occasion set a pattern for the 55f.

way you told him the same thing later?

58. How much do you think your is typical 58.
of other Japanese students?

84. How much do you think the Japanese students are alike 84.
as a group?
(0) don't know__ (I) very little __ (2) not much __
(3) somewhat ___ (4) very much __

148

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Twenty-Nine.

85.

59.

60.

93.

By way of contrast, how*much do you think American
students are alike as a group.

(0) don't know'__ (I) very little'__ (2) not
much _ (3) somewhat __ (’4) very much __

Do you expect to maintain contact with your
after he goes home?

 

(If yes) IHSw do you plan to keep up with him?

Would you like to keep up your with this
person even if American-Japanese relations became
strained?

Why do you feel that way?

Do you know any other Americans who know a
Japanese student fairly well?
(If yes) How many and how well?

Do you ever get tOgether with these Americans and
your Japanese friend(s) at the same time?
(If yes) How often and to do what?

85.

59.

60.

93-

149

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirty.

CHANGES IN THE PERSON

The questions in this section are about the effects your interaction with
foreign students has had on you personally.

63. Have you changed your outlook in any way about the 63.
countries you have met foreign students from?

(If yes, probe for specific countries, type and
amount of change.)

Has your contact with foreign students made the 6k.

gaps between different nationalities seem greater on
smaller than before?

(I) smaller__ (2) no change __ (3) greater __

How far apart do you now think different nationalities 9A.
are?

(I) very close __| (2) fairly cIOSe

(3) "0t t” far apart ‘— 90) fairly-73f apart
(5) very far apart __

65a. How do you feel at the present time about American
society? (Probe to establish category.)
(I) integrated functionally __

(2) integrated nonmatively (3) l and 2‘__

(II) fringe or marginal __ E) deviant
(6) isolate

65an

150

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirty-One.

65b. How has the way you feel about American society been

6

6

(A

7.

\0

affected by your contacts with foreign Students?

Do you think you have gained anything from inter-
acting with foreign students?

(If yes) What?

(If no) Why do you think you haven't?

Do you feel there have been any disadvantages to your
association with foreign students?
(If yes) What are they?

Why do you continue to associate with foreign students

since there are these disadvantages to it?

Here are a few topics which most peOple have Opinions
about. would you tell me which of these you have
changed your attitudes or ideas about as a result of
your contact with foreign students? (In each case
probe: what kind of change, how much change, and why
the change.)

a. race

65b.

66.

67.

69a.

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirty-TWO.

69. Continued.
b. religion

c. U.S. foreign policy

d. economic systems

e. family relationships

f. dating and marriage

i. political systems

151

69c.

69d.

69e.

69f.

69i.

152

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirty-Three.

69.

70.

7I.

72.

Continued.
h. your self-concept

Have your contacts with foreign students affected
your plans for the future in any way?

(If yes) In particular, how have your plans been
changed?

(I) travel (2) study abroad (3) living
abroad (E) Peace Corps ___ course work‘__

(6) forzTgn language study __ (7) vocation __
(8) other

(Probe: to what extent, why?)

Are there any changes in your outlook about anything,
which you feel have resulted from your contacts with
foreign students, but which have not come up in the

interview so far?

Looking back over the time you have been at MSU, do
you wish you had had more contact with foreign
students? (Probe reasons either way.)

69h.

70.

72.

153

TERRY INTERVIEW SCHEDULE - Page Thirty-Four.

72. Continued.
(If yes) What reasons are there that you didn't have
more contact with them?

73. Are there countries which would be exceptions to
the answer you gave to the last question?

76. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me that we
haven't covered?

73.

154

Appendix B

NOTES ON THE SCHEDULE

Question 1 (page 1) Race was recorded at the same time as sex, al-
though it had not been specifically included in the schedule.

Questions 3b, 7, 9, and 10 (pages 1 and 2) Religion was unfortunately
omitted from the schedule. In some cases it could be deter-
mined from answers to one of these questions.

Questions 9b, 10, 11 and 12 (page 2) These questions were asked in
the order 11, 12, 9b, lO°

Question 16 (page 5) When this question was about to be asked, two
cards containing lists of countries were given to the respon-
dent. One contained a number of specific countries' names,
and one contained various groupings of countries. The re-
spondent was instructed to refer to these cards in answering
this and any other questions which referred to countries or
nationalities.

The specific card contained a list of those
nations in the United Nations, plus mainland China. The gen-
eral list had the following entries:

Arab countries; "Negro" Africa; "White" Africa;
Western Europe; Northern Europe; Scandinavia;
Eastern Europe; Southeast Asia; India; Red China;
Russia; Latin America; Canada, Australia, New
Zealand.

Question 20 (page 7) Entry j., "family activities," was written out
on the respondent's card as "entertaining foreign students
in your own home or in your parents' home."

Question 27 (page 7) The amount of time used as a unit in the actual
interviewing was a week, on the assumption that a respondent
could more easily estimate that.

Question 62 (page 15) The blank spaces in this and many following
questions were to be filled in with the type of relationship
the respondent described in answer to question 36; specific-
cally, either "friendship" or "acquaintanceship."

Question 68 (pages 18 and 19) This whole question was a complete re-
writing of the original question 68 of the earlier versions
of the questionnaire.

155

Question 68a (page 18) This question was in fact asked, "Would you
say it is easier to get acquainted with you or with your
Japanese ?'

 

Questions 39 and 40 (page 19) The same card was used to provide
answer categories for these questions as for question 20.

Question 36 (page 19) Again, the unit of time asked about was a week°

Question 41 (pages 22 and 23) Two entries accidentally left off the
schedule were on the respondent's card:

i. participation in activities which would make
him/her too dependent on me.

k. going to places where he/she might be embar-
rassed because of nationality.

Questions 84 and 85 (pages 28 and 29) After nine respondents had
failed to give useful answers to these questions, the re-
maining twenty-seven respondents were asked a combined
question: "Do you think Japanese students are more or less
alike as a group than American students?"

Question 65a (page 30) This question was supplemented with the fol-
lowing standardized probes: "Do you feel a part of it?"
"Do you agree with most of its values?" and "Do you feel
well integrated into the social circles you are in?"

The order of questions and their numbering are not strictly
related. Questions retained from the original interview were left
numbered in their original way, even though their order was changed.
Questions added by the researcher were numbered in the order of their
creation, not according to their placement in the interview.

All questions numbered 80 or above were added by the present
researcher to the schedule he inherited.

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