War veterans were studied because their postwar adjustment difficulties would expose ethnic hostility

Evidence

The impulse to do research on war veterans had been the consideration that they were a socially significant group which had particular difficulty in adapting itself to the peacetime economy. The conditions leading to the venting of aggressive feelings in the form of ethnic intolerance, particularly against Jews and blacks, ought therefore to be easy to observe among them. Interviews with 150 Chicago veterans classified as belonging to the lower class and the lower middle class, none of them officers, formed the empirical basis of the research. The interviews, lasting four to seven hours, were longer than those done in Berkeley. They were carried outif possible in the interviewee’s homeby six young social workers, all women, who had been trained in psychiatry. This was intended to create the atmosphere of a `pleasant though intensive interview’, which would make it easy for the interviewee to speak openly about his experiences during the war and his current difficulties in adjusting. When the talk turned, first indirectly and then directly, to ethnic topics late in the interview, he would then be able to express his deep-seated attitudes. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1827

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader Studies in Prejudice project and Adorno’s interview methodology differences — a useful contrast on how interview design shapes what respondents reveal. — connects to: Postwar researchers studied American veterans as a test for fascism susceptibility — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 709

Broader Connections

• Postwar researchers studied American veterans as a test for fascism susceptibility #corroborates (0.90) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 709