ATTITUDES vs.ACTIONS Richard T. La Piere

Richard T. La Piere (September 5, 1899 – February 2, 1986) He was a professor Emeritus of sociology at Stanford University from 1929 to 1965. LaPiere is best known for his 1934 article "Attitudes Versus Actions" that appeared in the journal Social Forces.

Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual’s membership of a social group. For example, a person may hold prejudiced views towards a certain race or gender etc. (e.g. sexist)

Sexism

Discrimination the behavior or actions, usually negative, towards an individual or group of people, especially on the basis of sex/race/social class, etc.

Aims of the research LaPiere claimed to demonstrate the lack of consistency between what people say and what actually do. Will a person's attitude towards other races always be matched by their actions?

Method The derivation social attitudes are seldom more than a verbal response to a symbolic situation. The most measures depend on verbal responses to questions about some verbally described, broad category such as 'an ethnic minority‘ LaPiere decided to investigate racial prejudice by observing the real behavior of hotel and restaurant personnel.

The Chinese couple in his company were accommodated in the best hotel in a small town noted for its bigoted attitude towards Orientals. Two months later LaPiere happened to be in this town again and had the idea of phoning the hotel and asking whether they would accommodate 'an important Chinese gentleman'. The reply was an unequivocal 'No'.

Sometimes the researchers were travel worn and dusty and sometimes they looked more presentable They were received at 66 hotels, auto camps, and Tourist Homes, refused at one. They were served in 184 restaurants and cafes throughout the USA. LaPierre took detailed records on each occasion and judged that they received good service in 72 of them.

The Chinese-Americans made the reservations or orders, but LaPiere had not told them the research aims, and instead invented a number of ruses to be absent at the vital moment. In this way he attempted to ‘factor himself out’ LaPiere concluded that people responded more to appearance (condition of clothing, cleanliness,neatness, quality) rather than race.

6 months later a questionnaire was sent out to every one of the establishments visited, asking “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?”. Out of 251, 128 replied. 92% said ‘no’ to the question. In addition, the questionnaire was sent to hotels and restaurants other than those visited in the same areas. The same negative answer was received.

Result As LaPiere had expected, there was no consistency between the symbolic attitudes (responses to the letter) and actual behavior. The Chinese couple received courteous service in virtually every establishment, but responses to the letter were almost universally negative. This study showed that our actions don't always match our intentions.

Questinnaires were not good basis for predicting behavior.

Discussion There is no control of the study Requires Laboratory experimentation Subjective evaluation

There is no guarantee that the members of staff who replied to questionnaires (possibly management) were the same as the ones who served the guests There was also no investigation into why people made the choices that they did e.g. when answering the questionnaire.