The effects of time and practice upon culture assimilator training

The culture assimilator is a technique for training persons from one culture to better understand the behavior of persons from another culture. A laboratory test, using 35 white female college students, of an assimilator for teaching Whites about black culture revealed significant improvements in trained subjects' knowledge of black culture and in their enjoyment of an interpersonal interaction with black confederates. Support was found for the hypothesis that assimilator training heightens subjects' anxiety with regard to interpersonal encounters with members of the target culture, but that the anxiety decreases over time. Results suggest a small positive effect of a supportive practice interaction with a target culture member prior to the behavioral measures. Some of the attitude measures were significant in the hypothesized direction, but others were significant in the opposite direction. Possible causes and implications of these results are discussed.