Editors' notes

Motion Pictures and the Social Attitudes of Chicaldren  is a forgotten classic in the history of Social Psychology. The first broad application of attitude scales to a social issue, this study has had its largest impact within communications studies.

The study would also become part of an intense controversy at the end of the 1930s, one we believe to be largely responsible for much of the original animosity between "qualitative" and "quantitative" researchers.

Related Documents

Ruth C. Peterson and Louis L. Thurstone. The Effect of Motion Pictures on the Social Attitudes of High School Children. Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers (1932).

Herbert Blumer. Movies and Conduct. New York: Macmillan & Company (1933).

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THE first experiment was conducted in April, 1929, with the coöperation of Hyde Park High School and the Tower Theater of Chicago. The experiment was set up to study the effect of motion pictures on the children's attitudes toward race and nationality. The attitudes of the high school students toward a number of nationalities were measured by a paired comparison schedule given on April 22, 1929. The directions and a sample of the schedule appear below.

(2)

There were 23 nationalities in the list and a total of 237 comparisons of the type indicated above.

During the following week, which was the week of spring vacation, four motion pictures were shown at special performances at the Tower Theater. The children had been given tickets which were to be signed and presented for admittance to the theater. The films shown were

(1) "The Jazz-Singer," chosen as a picture which might affect the children's attitudes toward the Jews, shown on April 29.

(2) "Michael Strogoff," chosen as a picture which might affect the children's attitudes toward the Russians, shown on April 30.

(3 & 4) "Four Sons" and "The Emden," two pictures which might affect attitude toward the Germans, shown on May 1 and May 2 respectively.

The paired comparison schedule was given again at the school the following Monday, May 6. As indicated in the directions, the children were asked to underline the nationality of each pair which they preferred to associate with. The results were tabulated, and the proportion of students who preferred nationality A to nationality B was calculated for each pair. With these proportions, the scale value of

( 3) each nationality was calculated by the law of comparative judgment. These scale values, representing the attitudes of the children toward each nationality before they saw the motion pictures, were compared with scale values similarly calculated for the group after they saw the motion pictures. The shifts in attitude were in general in the expected direction, but the differences were not statistically significant.

Considering the fact that it was difficult to obtain pictures which had not previously played in theaters which were available to the students in a Chicago high school, it was thought advisable to carry on the subsequent experiments in small towns where the children are less sophisticated as far as motion pictures are concerned and where the population is more homogeneous. With the exception of the study at Thomas Aquinas High School, the rest of the experiments were carried on in small towns in Illinois.

In the second experiment, a group of children from Thomas Aquinas High School were invited to the Burton Holmes lecture on Italy which was given in Orchestra Hall, Chicago, on March 15, 1930. A paired comparison of nationalities, of which the following is a sample, was given in the school the week previous to the lecture and was given in Orchestra Hall immediately after the lecture. In this case each of the 14 nationalities was paired with every other, making a total of 91 comparisons.

(4)

The experiment showed a slight change in attitude favorable to Italians, but the change was not statistically significant. The experiment was incidental, but was carried on because the subjects and lecture were readily available.