Abstract
This chapter begins the presentation of the results of the representative online survey by addressing respondents ’ sociodemographic characteristics , with a first focus on the differences between the Polish and German samples. The main content revolves around the mutual attitudes , stereotypes and prejudices towards the neighboring country as expressed on the survey. After discussing mutual interests, sympathy , knowledge and fascination , discussion centers on the unaided associations of Poles and Germans with their respective neighboring country /people, followed by more standardized image perceptions and attitudes towards those neighbors . Finally, we explore the level of prejudices and stereotypes that we sought to measure under avoidance of too much social desirability. Our results reveal that, while Poles and Germans in the border region do not know very much about each other, in general they think rather positively about one another. Nevertheless, we confirm the existence of persistent (negative) stereotypes and prejudices and underline the validity of the contact hypothesis , which posits that respondents who have visited the neighboring country show more positive attitudes and fewer negative prejudices . Finally, we present respondents ’ perceptions of the Polish-German border itself that, it turns out, is not generally seen as a barrier but perceived as quite natural and non-disturbing.
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- 1.
Respondents with university entry degree also differ (0.78), but not significantly.
- 2.
RS indicates a Spearman Rho correlation value.
- 3.
- 4.
Poland is a religious country , Poland has problems with corruption , the Polish-German relationship suffers from the past.
- 5.
Germany is not a religious country , Germans are not very humorous, Germans do not take Poles seriously, the Polish-German relationship suffers from the past, and the political situation in Germany is difficult.
- 6.
The following is an example from Table 7.18 in Appendix of a refuted stereotype/prejudice of German respondents about Poland/Poles: the negatively-connotated item “quality of work” (implying that Germans assumed that quality of work is not very high in Poland, a typical prejudice) correlates significantly and negatively with the frequency of personal contacts with Poland/Poles (RS −0.184***). This means that the more personal contact the better the evaluation of the quality of work in Poland/of Poles. Thus, this prejudice is refuted by personal contact .
- 7.
The following is an example from Table 7.18 in Appendix of a confirmed stereotype/prejudice of Polish respondents about Germany/Germans: the positively-connotated item “interesting cities” (implying that German cities are assumed to be interesting) correlates significantly and negatively with the frequency of media contacts with Germany (RS −0.234***). This means that the more media contacts the better the evaluation of the attractiveness of German cities. Thus, this stereotype is confirmed by media contact .
- 8.
With a positive connotation coded as +1, neutral as 0 and negative as −1.
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Appendices
Appendices
See Tables 7.15, 7.16, 7.17 and 7.18.
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Mayer, M., Zbaraszewski, W., Pieńkowski, D., Gach, G., Gernert, J. (2019). Mutual Attitudes, Stereotypes and Prejudices Towards the Neighboring Country and Perceptions of the Polish-German Border. In: Cross-Border Tourism in Protected Areas. Geographies of Tourism and Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05961-3_7
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