Attitude-receptional assimilation
Attitude-receptional assimilation is a concept that describes the process through which individuals from minority or immigrant groups experience a reduction in prejudice towards them as they integrate into the dominant culture of a host society. This process is one of the seven stages of assimilation identified by sociologist Milton M. Gordon, which also include cultural, structural, marital, identificational, behavioral-receptional, and civic assimilation. Within this framework, attitude-receptional assimilation occurs when individuals begin to view a racial or ethnic subgroup more positively, often as a result of exposure to different cultural traits, such as manners and dialects.
Gordon posits that this reduction in prejudice often precedes further stages of assimilation, such as behavioral-receptional assimilation, which involves a lack of intentional discrimination. Importantly, the degree of attitude-receptional assimilation can vary significantly across different groups. For example, Gordon notes that certain European ethnic groups, like the Irish, may experience this phase more fully than American Indian populations, who may retain distinct cultural traits that impact their assimilation journey. Understanding this aspect of assimilation provides insight into the complexities of how different racial and ethnic groups navigate integration into broader society, highlighting the significance of cultural perceptions in shaping relationships between groups.
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Attitude-receptional assimilation
Attitude-receptional assimilation, as described by Milton M. Gordon (1918-2019) in his influential book Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (1964) is the fifth of seven stages of assimilation of minority or immigrant groups into a host society’s dominant culture. Gordon's framework attempts to categorize the seven stages of assimilation individuals experience after immigrating to a new country, including cultural, structural, marital, identificational, attitude-receptional, behavioral-receptional, and civic assimilation. Attitude-receptional assimilation results in the lack of prejudice against a racial/ethnic subgroup or minority. This process occurs in varying degrees during the assimilation process. Gordon suggests that prejudice is a result of differences in extrinsic cultural traits such as manners, dialect, and expression rather than of differences in intrinsic cultural traits such as religion, historical language, and values. Lack of prejudice is likely to precede the next stage of assimilation, behavior-receptional assimilation (lack of intentional discrimination), or this relationship can be opposite in direction. Gordon also suggests that attitude-receptional assimilation may occur during cultural assimilation but not structural assimilation. For example, attitude-receptional assimilation is completed to a greater degree in the assimilation of certain European ethnic groups, such as the Irish, than it is in the assimilation of American Indians. One possible reason for this difference is that the latter group, in contrast to the Irish, maintains different extrinsic traits for political and demographic reasons, and that behavior-receptional assimilation is less for American Indian peoples than for the Irish because of the establishment of separate nation-states for American Indians.
Attitude reception, in William J. McGuire’s reception-yielding model, is the likelihood of a change in attitude, such as a reduction of prejudice. It is defined as a product of the probability of reception (how focused or distracted the person is) and the probability of the person’s yielding to the information received (which is affected by the use of appeals involving fear and other factors). The relative weight of each variable depends upon the persuasion context, which involves elements such as the mode of communication. In addition, reception is related to the characteristics of the recipient, such as verbal intelligence.
Bibliography
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Fong, Eric, et al., editors. Immigrant Adaptation in Multi-Ethnic Societies: Canada, Taiwan, and the United States. Routledge, 2013.
Gordon, Milton M. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. Oxford UP, 1964.
Healey, Joseph F., and Eileen O'Brien. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class: The Sociology of Group Conflict and Change. 9th ed., Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.
Kivisto, Peter. "Integration and Assimilation: The Core Concept and Three Contemporary Developments." Immigrants in American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration, edited by Elliott Robert Barkan, vol. 4, ABC-CLIO, 2013, pp. 1621–36.
McGuire, William J. "Personality and Attitude Change: An Information-Processing Theory." Psychological Foundations of Attitudes, edited by Anthony G. Greenwald, et al., Academic, 1968, pp. 171–96.
Petrissans, Catherine M. "Assimilation." Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice, edited by Sherwood Thompson, Rowman, 2015, pp. 76–78.