Abstract

A survey was conducted to investigate the nature of stereotype of North Korea and the inter-relationship among emotional empathy with North Korea, the amount of information on North Korea, and the psychological distance toward unification. One hundred-eighty nine college South Korean students evaluated four groups: North Korea as a nation, its residents in general, North Korean men and women. Students reported that when they evaluated North Korea as a nation the first image that carne to their mind were political leaders, especially Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jung-il, and their aggressiveness and masculinity. They perceived both North Korea and North Korean men as aggressive and dominant. On the other hand, college students evaluated North Korean women on the basis of their perception of North Korean residents and their economic hardship. There was no common attribute between the stereotype of North Korea as a nation and that of North Korean women. A multidimensional scaling analysis showed that the stereotype of North Korean residents lay in the middle of those of North Korean men and women. North Korea as a nation and North Korean women were located on the opposite side of a multidimensional scale. The more positively South Korean students perceived North Korea and its people, the more they emotionally empathized with North Korea, or the more information on North Korea they had, the smaller was their psychological distance toward unification.