The effect of experience on the political attitudes of Korean college students

Korean student enter college singularly susceptible to the influence of their seniors, who tend to be critical of the Korean government and its relation to the United States, and by extension, the United States itself. One recent study involving 208 Korean college students suggested that the attitude of the great majority had become progressively less favorable, or more unfavorable toward the United States over a one-year-period, and more cynical concerning its motives. That study, however, did not control for age, and relied on students’ own impressionistic self-reports of their initial attitudes. The present study is a replication and extension of that one, using a panel of entering students, whose attitudes were measured during the first and last weeks of their first college semester. The results indicate that the change in attitude toward “anti-Americanism” occurs within this first semester.