Arab Students' Attitudes Toward and Amount of Social Contact With Americans: A Causal Process Analysis of Cross-Sectional Data.

The article presents a study of the relationship between attitudes toward Americans and social contact with Americans in a sample of Saudi Arabian students attending a university in the United States. Eighty-five male Saudi Arabian students enrolled in classes in universities or colleges in fall 1993 were mailed a questionnaire with a cover letter and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Seventy-four of the 85 questionnaires were completed and returned within the period allotted for data collection. The high return rate for this anonymous questionnaire may, in part, be attributable to the students' high personal interest in the topic and the fact that the questionnaire was written and signed by three Middle Eastern doctoral students at the University of Pittsburgh. The questionnaire was developed from a pilot test on a small number of Saudi students who were not participants in the actual study. In addition to the social contact, attitude, intervening variable, and background items critical to the current study, some scales and items not relevant to the current study were included in the questionnaire. Researchers assumed that the amount of desired contact mediated the causal impact of favorable attitude on amount of (actual) social contact.