1. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
GROUP (WEDNESDAY)
CHAN PIN QI 0314676
DANAR JOVIAN ADITYA VADYA PUTRA 0314575
CHIA SUE YI0315334
JOHNSON CHAN0314527
SEAN CHUA JIU XIN0314025
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL, BUILT &
ENVIRONMENT
APRIL INTAKE
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The members of the team would like to express their deepest
appreciation to all those who provided us the possibility to complete this
report. A special gratitude we give to our lecturer, Ms. Chia Yee Pang,
whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and encouragement,
helped us to coordinate our project especially in writing this report.
Special thanks to the LRT security for the approval to take the video in
the train to conduct our research. Last but not the least, many thanks for
the people who had participated in our research. We couldn’t do it if it
weren’t them.
4. ABSTRACT
As Malaysia’s population becomes increasingly more diverse ethnically
and culturally, the opportunities for individuals of differing racial
backgrounds and ethnic groups to mix interracially when engaging in
romantic relationships increases as well. The purpose of this study was
to compare people’s perceptions of couples engaged in interracial
romantic relationships compared to college students’ perceptions of
couples engaged in romantic relations with individuals of the same racial
heritage. The research was conducted in Taylor’s University Lakeside
Campus as well on the LRT train, using the students of Taylor’s
University and the commuters of LRT. The purpose of this research is to
make a comparative examination of attitudes and perceptions concerning
interracial dating. In total, 100 students completed the Interracial
Relationship Questionnaire, an instrument designed to assess attitudes
toward interracial dating. Results indicate that most of the participants
are at the age of 19-24. Most of the Chinese, Indians and other races,
they have an open minded thinking about interracial relationships as
well as their parents. For the Malays, most of them don’t mind having a
relationship with other races, but the problem comes with their parents
as three out of five of them would not agree with interracial relationship.
5. INTRODUCTION
Malaysia is a melting pot of cultures and our society is very fluid. So
interracial relationships are not uncommon, yet we still possess a somewhat
contemptuous attitude towards it. Some of the people in Malaysia that are
having an interracial relationship often experience intense struggles and
obstacles throughout their relationship simply because one side of the family
or the other disagrees with the idea of having a different race for a partner.
Malaysia, historically, has been a nation of immigrants, most of them are
from India and China. They were brought here by the British during Britain's
colonization as a workforce/labour. Most of the Indians they work on a
rubber tapping industry where as the Chinese they work in the mining
industry. Of course, the mining industry earns more revenue that the rubber
tapping industry, which in consequence in a better standard of living for the
Chinese than the Indians.
But as the year goes by, many people in Malaysia regardless of what their
race are starting to earn more money. This results in a growing parental
openness to diverse populations came increased opportunities for their
children socially to interact with people of racial and ethnic backgrounds
beyond their own.
Openness to interracial relationships varies among generations. Generally,
the older generations have been more opposed to interracial relationship
while the younger generations have tended to view interracial relationship as
a normal thing.
In this study, we explore what are other people's perception on other races
than their own. We also were interested in knowing what is the student's view
in interracial relationship as well as the openness of their parents of having a
relationship with another race other than their own.
6. METHOD
Participants
One hundred participants with different ages enrolled in this Psychology
course at private institution in Petaling Jaya (Taylor University). We
administered a self-report survey instrument created by the authors to
record the students’ and their opinion on interracially relationships.
Questionnaires with participant’s completed responses were used for the
study. One hundred sets were usable for the research study. The
response rate was 99%. Reason that every questionnaires were useable
in this survey. As a result, 57 male and 43 female participants were part
of the completed study.
Procedure
Participants were given the questionnaires to complete during recess. To
ensure the privacy, participants did not need to write their name on
survey forms. After collecting the completed questionnaires from the
participants, we started to calculate the numbers of questionnaires that
we had collected. Then, we started to categorize the questionnaires into
genders and races to let us examined the result easily. We analyzed and
collected data from the questionnaires. The data and results were
recorded in the table that we made for our report. Besides, we had our
own survey based on this topic by observing and recording the behavior
of passengers (different races and genders) in LRT. Every actions of the
passengers were recorded. Moreover, we watched the videos that we
recorded and chose some of them which were related to our survey out.
7. Design
Hypothesis : Attractiveness depends on similarity and proximity
Independent variable : Gender and races
Dependent variable
: Rate of attractiveness
Material
Examiners had prepared 100 questionnaires for participants. The general
questionnaire constructs for every participant were identical. Beyond
basic demographic information, all were asked to provide the opinions
and acceptance on different genders and races. They needed to answer
every question sincerely to ensure the result collected were accurate and
easy to analyze. The racial categories included Malay, Chinese, Indian
and others. Besides, they would answer what kind of partner from
different races which country they prefer to become their partner.
Furthermore, they were required to answer the questions on acceptance
between different genders and races.
Besides, the examiners used a lot of technical equipment to carry out the
experiment in LRT. DSLR camera, digital camera and camera tripod
were used in the experiment. Some of the examiners used cameras to
record the behavior of the passengers, while some of them observed the
action passengers and took notes. The data were collected and arranged
after the experiment.
8. Result
A survey of similarity and proximity happened during Interracial
Relation between a man and woman cohabitation, sexual relations,
marriage, or interbreeding involving persons of different races.
However, this was also a survey based on people choices preferred
partners e.g. country, races, religion, skin color.
Below showed the races member of Taylor’s involved in the survey.
Race
Total Amount
Chinese
73
Malay
8
Indian
5
Others
6
Number of different gender involved.
40
51
Female
Male
15. Discussion
The research findings confirmed the hypothesis is accepted which the
attractiveness depends on similarity, proximity and familiarity. Items
that are similar to each other tend to be grouped together. It happened to
people as well. A basic requirement for forming a relationship is
similarity, proximity and familiarity. For example, those superstars in
the TV shows will not possible building up relationship with us. There’s
no chance for us to be close enough with them (no proximity), therefore
they will still remain as our idol, not friends. Having more chances to
interact with each other will build up familiarity and lead to friendship
or intimate relationship according to the mere exposure effect (Robert B.
Zajonc, 1968) which states that the more we are exposed to a stimulus,
whether it is a sound, picture or person, the more positively we will rate
that stimulus. Therefore people will choose the one who are similar,
familiar and close to them in building up relationship.
The experiment carried out in the LRT confirmed the hypothesis is
accepted. Passengers who were entering the LRT tended to choose the
seats beside the people who similar to them such as same races and same
gender. A hidden attraction will be formed between those people who
were similar to each other, as they felt more secure while sitting with the
same gender or same race. Among 109 participants taken part in the
survey, 60% of the participants were found to choose seats near the
people who share similarity, proximity and familiarity. Passengers who
are different gender would hesitate a while whether wants to sit with a
guy or not. The results showed majority of them will choose to sit with
same gender or sit with the other gender then move to other seats when
empty seats are available. However, due to the crowd in the LRT, some
16. people would not bother whom to sit with just to want a seat and get
some rest. There’s another reason why the people do not want to sit with
people beside as they were letting seats for those who need such as old
ladies and small kids. However, there’s small portion of people who did
not care about the similarity, familiarity and proximity that sit with other
gender or races but only 40% of them.
A survey of people point of view towards other races is taken out among
members in Taylor’s. The finding showed the majority of students have
friends of same races except the foreigners. Due to the incident
happened 13of May, the locals lost confidence in other races and leads
to the separation of each other. Since they had been hurt by each other
before, it’s hard to recover the scars. Therefore, friends of the locals’
majority are same race. However, for foreigners, they made friends with
same races people and also different races people equally. One of the
reasons may because they had already used to live with the people from
other races as they stayed abroad.
The survey also involved which country’s people tended to attract
people most. A result showed Asian country tends to attract most of the
participants, as most of our participants were Chinese. Chinese attracted
by Asian countries’ people. The hypothesis is accepted. For races beside
from Chinese, most Malay were attracted by the people from South East
Asia and Asian. Malay seldom chose Europe and other country as their
ideal partner’s country. This may be caused by the conflict happened
between the Christian and the Islam. Prejudice involved in this survey.
17. People also tended to be attracted by those who had the same color skin
with them.
The findings showed the Chinese mostly prefer their partner to have
yellow skin color. Their second choice would be white color for their
partner’s ideal skin color. The Malay, Indian and the foreigners would
choose skin color skin of light brown as same as their own skin color.
Dark brown skin color seemed to be looked down by the majority of the
participants as only small portion of them chose this. This may be
caused by the America Slaves rule which setting the Blacks as the lower
standard citizens.
According to the Steven Duck (1992) theory, he explained the
tenderness of people towards similarity, proximity and familiarity was
because of seeing the world in the same way as someone else make it
easier to interact with them. Therefore, everyone in the world contained
a bit of racism deep inside the heart. The hypothesis was accepted.
The survey above showed that people of certain skin
color tend to find those who are from same color.
Light Brown: Malay, foreigner, Indian
Yellow
: Chinese
White: Chinese
18. Appendix
Appendix 1.a
Age
< 18
19 - 24
25 - 29
29 - 34
35 - 39
> 40
Amount of Participant
8
77
4
0
1
2
100
Appendix 1.b
Gender
Male
Female
Amount of Participant
57
43
100
Appendix 1.c
Status
Single
In relationship
Married
Others
Amount of Participant
68
28
3
1
100
Appendix 1.d
Race
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others
Amount of Participant
76
10
5
9
100
19. Appendix 2.a
Race
Question
1. Would you choose other
races as your partner?
Yes
4
Malay
No
1
Yes
46
Chinese
No
30
Yes
8
Indian
No
2
Yes
9
Others
No
0
2. Do the parents agree
interracial relationship?
2
3
52
24
9
1
8
1
3. Do you feel comfort
while people from others
country?
3
2
62
14
10
0
9
0
Appendix 2.b
Race
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others
3
3
1
1
1
0
23
43
22
17
3
5
2
2
4
3
6
1
1
5
4
1
0
3
Country
South East Asia
Asia
Europe
North America
South America
Others:
Appendix 2.c
Race
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others
1
1
4
1
28
46
18
2
3
2
7
0
2
3
3
0
Skin color
White
Yellow
Light Brown
Dark brown
Appendix 2.d
Races
Friend race
95% same race
50% same race
25% same race
Malay
Chinese
Indian
3
1
1
47
25
1
3
4
3
Others
2
3
4
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