A Research On South Korean Sojourners’ Implicit Bias Towards Chinese

In the process of globalization,sojourners and immigrantshave settled in China. The conflicts between these foreigners and Chinese have become increasingly prominent social problems. This paper focuses on the topic of implicit bias, taking South Korean sojourners in Dalian as research object, provides insight into the covertness and complexities of bias by digging into these sojourners’ intergroup attitudes towards Chinese.First, we carried out empirical research concerning implicit bias on the part of the South Korean sojourners. The results obtained verified the scenario:the participants had dual attitudes towards Chinese people. Meanwhile, the interviews showed that some South Korean sojourners had dual attitudes towards Chinese people, and there were some inconsistencies showed in their attitudes towards Chinese people to a certain extent. As their interaction partners, Chinese people were mostly able to perceive theimplicit biasof these South Korean sojourners, and able to perceive their explicit positive attitudes as well as their implicit negative attitudes. Research results showed that these South Korean sojourners’ inconsistencies in attitudes increased unpredictabilities and uncertainties in the interaction.Second, this paper attempted to conduct preliminary exploration of the manifestations and representations of implicit prejudice, correspondingly divided these manifestations into four categories, namely, linguistic bias, nonverbal bias, cognitive bias and behavioral bias. By means of strategic expressions of language, South Korean sojourners revealed their biased way of thinking towards Chinese. During intergroup interaction, when South Korean sojourners who had dual attitudes towards Chinese tried to conceal their bias, their micro facial expressions revealed their true inner thoughts and feelings. South Korean sojourners’ cognitive bias lies in, when evaluating outgroup Chinese and ingroup members,they were liable to adopt dual standards, the implicit bias of cognition embodied in their behaviors towards Chinese people.Third, the paper focused on the analysis of the reason why South Koreans were biased against Chinese. Implicit attitudes often result from multiple reasons and perspectives, mainly as the results of psychological conflict and cultural conflicts. From a historical perspective, in order to adapt to harsh living environment and stay away from diseases, the Koguryo nationality was inclined to avoid and derogate outgroups. In the context of unequal power-based status like sojourners and host nationals, by subjectively making positive assessments on their ingroup members and making connections between ingroup members and positive qualities, South Korean sojourners can enhance self-identity. Cultural similarities (i.e., small cultural distance) does not mean that there is no bias between members of different groups or this bias is at low level. Symbolic threat results in conflicts, thereby shaping implicit bias. In the past ten years, implicit contradictions between South Korean and Chinese have focused on the similarities in two cultures, mainly highlighted as disputes of cultural symbols of theintangible cultural heritages. To abandon the Chinese elements, to find their own axis of culture, and to enhance the sense of belonging have become South Korean’s implicit cultural consciousness.Fourth, this paper examined the strategic concealment of bias as well as the conversion between implicit and explicit bias. South Korean sojourners tended to take perspectives of Chinese to judge whether attitudes and behaviors wereappropriate in a certain communication context, thisshowed the dual-consciousness (nationalism and integration) and dual-identities (both as South Koreans and as sojourners) of South Korean sojournersas well as the inner conflicts resulting from it.Finally, we further investigated the effects of implicit bias on the interactions between Chinese and South Korean sojourners. South Korean sojourners’ implicit bias against Chinese had a negative effect, not only on sojourners themselves, and their Chinese interaction partners (direct contact), but also on their friends or family members who lived in South Korea (indirect contact). Implicit bias could increase sojourners’intergroup anxieties, made them showinginsincere "preference" tendencies towards Chinese people. In the meantime, it had a negative impact on the acculturation process of these sojourners. The intergroup contact between Chinese and South Korean sojourners is a two-way process of adaptation. If these sojourners held negative attitudes towards Chinese, they would believe that Chinese also held negative attitudes towards themselves. The case is the same for Chinese, if Chinese held negative attitudes towards South Korean sojourners, they would believe that these sojourners also held negative attitudes towards themselves. These presupposed implicit negative attitudes had profound negative impact on the actual interaction between Chinese and these sojourners. South Korean sojourners belong to a unique group, they have unique identities and live in and between two cultures. As the representatives of their own group, they interact with Chinese people. When they communicate with their relatives or friends in South Korea, or have short vacation or terminate their stay in China and return home, they will extend their attitudes towards Chinese to their relatives or friends by interpersonal contact in either verbal or written forms. Consequently, the negative impact of implicit bias lies in their implicit bias will affect their family members and friends’ impressions on Chinese through this indirect and extended contact.In terms of South Korean sojourners in this study, their attitudes towards and evaluations of Chinese people showed that they had implicit bias towards Chinese. Their negative attitudes significantly differentiated themselves from their positive attitudes towards Chinese. The covertness and complexities of South Korean sojourners’ bias against Chinese increased the anxieties and uncertainties in the interactions and accordingly had some negative impact on theseinteractions. Only by fully understand the negative impact of implicit bias on intergroup contact between Chinese and South Korean, will it be possible to overcome the weaknesses of human nature, and resume the moral of human beings through understanding and communication.