| dc.description.abstract | The empirical basis of analyses are respondents’ replies which made it possible to identify the best, i.e. the most appropriate names for three occupational groups: peasants, clerks and workmen (the latter group was the one to which belonged the respondents). These replies were obtained using a three-stage procedure: in the first stage, the respondents were given denotational characterization of each of the three groups; in the second one, they were asked to indicate the name most appropriate for a given group; finally the last question asked was about the names least appropriate for naming the group.
The analyses consist of two parts. The first descriptive one – contains tentative hypotheses suggesting the causes which explain the fact that certain names were approved by the respondents as most appropriate ones for a given occupational group. The second part is devoted to the scrutiny of relationships between the names and the stereotypes of these groups: more precisely, it was a question of finding out whether the names had a discriminatory nature, i.e. whether some of them were linked with the stereotype of a given occupational group. As in the analysis of stereotypes of groups both the content and its emotive colouring were considered, the study of linkage between the names and the stereotypes proceeded in two directions; the first one aimed at establishing the links between the names and the traits of a typical .representative of a given occupational group treated as the content of the stereotype. This analysis was performed at two levels: the one related to the differentiation within the two opposite traits and the other to the differentiation between them. The other direction of analysis aimed at the identification of links between the names chosen by the respondents and their attitudes toward the groups the names related to.
The results of these analyses are as follows: there were rather weak links between the name recognized as the most appropriate designation for a given group and its stereotype; this means that the respondents who chose a given name were linking it, at the same time, with different stereotypes of the occupational group for which they used it. This finding seems to corroborate the hypothesis according to which there is no “automatic” coupling between a name and a stereotype – i.e. a coupling based on the S – R principle, the stimulus being denotational characterization of the occupational group activating the stereotype and the reaction the name as its reflection. The use of names which could directly indicate the stereotypes might be – in official situations to which belongs the interview – a manoeuvre whose purpose is to conceal particularly negative stereotypes. | pl_PL |
