Children's attitudes toward rational versus inhibitory parental authority.

"Starting with Fromm's (1941) distinction between rational and inhibitory authority, the study investigates children's attitudes towards their parents' restrictive norms and checking actions… . The results indicate that if parents' restrictive norms and checking actions are accompanied by authoritarian motivations (inhibiting authority), the children's positive attitudes towards these are negatively correlated with chronological age, verbal intelligence… and preference for altruistic alternatives to authoritarian ones… . If the… actions are accompanied by rational motivations (indicating rational parental authority), the attitudes have a tendency to correlate positively with these three independent variables." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FG15P. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral reasoning and attitudes toward capital punishment.

Addressed 3 aspects of L. Kohlberg's (1981, 1984) theory of moral development, specifically the relationship between (1) levels of moral reasoning used to support opposing positions on a moral problem (the structure issue); (2) moral stage, conceptual complexity, and attitudes about capital punishment (the form/content issue); and (3) moral orientations and attitudes about capital punishment (the orientation/content issue). A sample of 72 students (aged 17–45 yrs) completed a paragraph completion test (assessing conceptual complexity), wrote an essay on capital punishment (assessing moral stage and orientations), and responded to a capital punishment questionnaire (assessing attitudes). Results indicate that Ss at higher moral stages were increasingly complex and tended to oppose capital punishment. Ss did not always use higher moral reasoning to substantiate their own position on capital punishment; rather they used higher reasoning to oppose capital punishment. Also, Ss expressed considerations reflecting different orientations when supporting opposite positions on this moral problem. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of attitudes toward alcohol and their relation to personality variables.

2 10-item alcohol attitude scales were developed from an available item pool. 1 scale measures favorability of attitude toward "social drinking" while the other taps attitude toward "alcoholism and the alcoholic." Scores on the scales were consistent with ratings of attitudes and of drinking behavior made from interview reports obtained from 2 college student samples participating in a longitudinal study, 92 students at Stanford University and 102 at the University of California, Berkeley. Alcohol attitudes of these groups were correlated with scores on 2 personality variables, "social maturity" and "impulse expression." Differences between the 2 samples, and between the sexes, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in youth's attitudes toward authority: The transition from university to employment.

In 3 studies, 3 different samples of graduating male students, drawn from the faculties of engineering, education, and social sciences at a university (ns = 70, 70, and 60, respectively) were tested before and after a period of full-time employment for changes in attitudes toward authority. Differences were reported between students who proceeded to graduate studies and those who entered employment. The hypothesis that negative attitudes would decline and liking and submissive responses would increase for Ss making the transition from university to employment was supported in all 3 studies in which a 1-yr follow-up was conducted. By contrast, students who continued in a university career showed very little decline in critical attitudes. Results are interpreted in the context of the permissiveness of the university environment, and implications for counselor functions and counseling concepts are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in attitudes toward authority figures with the move to college: Three experiments.

Explored changes in attitudes toward authority of 2 samples of students (N = 508), who were tested before and after college entrance. Differences were reported between the sexes and between students who continued to reside at home and those who moved to the campus. The increase in negative attitudes toward authority observed in high school adolescents was found to continue into the college years, in contrast to predictions derived from psychoanalytic theory. The changing attitudes are interpreted in the context of other cognitive changes during the college years. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarian attitudes and personality maladjustment.

The MMPI was administered to 712 college freshmen and 114 seniors. The seniors also took the California F scale. A year later 312 of the freshmen retook the MMPI. The MMPI Pr scores piled up at the low end of the distribution. The Pr reliability was .81. Mean Pr decreased with advance in college. Mean Pr scores differed significantly for different college majors. Pr correlated significantly with the F scale; positively with Hs, D, Pd, Pt, Sc, and Ma; and negatively with K and Hy. Certain psychopathological factors are considered to be present in the authoritarian syndrome. 21 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes toward authority of delinquent and non-delinquent boys.

A picture projective test designed to measure attitudes toward authority incorporating two levels each of three variables, male and female authority figures, high and low power authority figures, and high and low threat situations, was administered to 20 delinquent and 20 non-delinquent boys of age 10-12. The hypothesis that there are differences in attitudes of delinquents and non-delinquents toward authority was not supported. Results indicated significantly greater expressed hostility of both groups toward female authority figures than to male authority figures. Responses to different levels of threat and power varied significantly from individual to individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotherapists' attitudes toward suicide.

Assessed psychotherapists' attitudes toward a number of potential suicides and their attitudes toward the concept of rational suicide in general. 186 Ss received a case scenario in which a current client of a member or the general public was considering suicide because of a terminal illness, physical pain, psychological pain, or bankruptcy. Ss also completed the Suicide Semantic Differential Scale. Ss were differentially accepting of suicidal ideation, based on precipitating circumstances, and Ss would take different amounts of action to prevent a suicide depending on why the person had decided to commit suicide. Ss who had been in practice for 30+ yrs were more accepting of suicide and would take less action to prevent a suicide than less experienced Ss. 81% of the Ss believed in the idea of rational suicide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dependence on external influence: Correlates in perception, attitudes, and judgment.

The hypothesis that people have a generalized tendency to accept or reject external influence is tested in perceptual and conformity situations, using 53 college males as S's. The results show that S's who are highly influenced by the field in one perceptual test perform similarly in other perceptual tests, conformity measures are not significantly interrelated, and field dependent perceptual behavior is associated with high conformity in other tests, particularly autokinetic and attitude change measures. It is suggested that while perceptual performance reflects central tendencies of the person, his performance in specific conformity situations is subject to greater fluctuation as a result of more peripheral factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Friends and strangers: Acquaintanceship, agreement, and the accuracy of personality judgment.

We examined the effect of acquaintanceship on interjudge agreement in personality ratings. Approximately 150 undergraduates described their own personalities using the Q-sort. They were also described by two close acquaintances and by two "strangers" who knew them only via a single, spontaneous interaction viewed on videotape. The effect of acquaintanceship was powerful: Judgments by close acquaintances agreed with each other and with subjects' self-judgments much better than did judgments by strangers, even though strangers' judgments agreed with each other and with subjects' self-judgments beyond a chance level. This result implies that agreement among acquaintances' judgments must derive at least partly from experience with and observation of the person who is judged. The same traits that yielded better agreement among acquaintances also yielded better agreement among strangers and tended to be rated higher in subjective visibility, suggesting that people are intuitively knowledgeable about the traits they can judge with more and less agreement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism and attitudes toward high achievers.

In 2 studies 204 Ss completed scales measuring right-wing authoritarianism, general attitudes toward high achievers, global self-esteem, and items concerned with voting preference, causal attributions, personality characteristics, deservingness, responsibility, and affective reactions to the rise and fall of 3 political leaders. Study 1 distinguished between components of right-wing authoritarianism and showed that the nonaggressive rule-follower with high global self-esteem was more likely to favor the fall of high achievers. Study 2 showed that right-wing voting preference moderated relations between authoritarianism and Ss' affective reactions and that prediction of these variables was significantly enhanced when personality, attribution, and derservingness were added to the regression equation after controlling for the effects of age and gender, right-wing political preference, and authoritarianism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological androgyny and attitudes toward feminism.

Administered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and Spence and Helm Attitudes toward Women Scale to 50 male and 50 female undergraduates. Only males with a preference for the feminine sex role differed from the other sex and level-of-androgyny groups, in that they exhibited traditional, conservative attitudes toward the rights and roles of women in contemporary society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accountability and judgment processes in a personality prediction task.

In this experiment, we investigated the impact of accountability—social pressures to justify one's views to others—on cognitive processing in a personality-prediction task. Subjects were presented with the responses of actual test-takers to 16 items from Jackson's Personality Research Form (PRF) and asked to predict how these individuals responded to an additional set of 16 items from the same test. Subjects were assigned to a no-accountability condition (they learned of the need to justify their responses before seeing the test-takers' PRF responses), and a postexposure-accountability condition (they learned of the need to justify their responses after seeing the test-takers' PRF responses). Preexposure-accountability subjects reported more integratively complex impressions of test-takers, made more accurate behavioral predictions, and reported more appropriate levels of confidence in their predictions than did either no-accountability or postexposure-accountability subjects. We conclude by considering possible psychological mediators of these effects as well as the broader theoretical implications of the findings for the development of contingency models of judgment and choice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Third-world managers' attitudes toward pollution.

Examined pollution awareness and concern over pollution among 120 Indian managers from several industries. Pollution attitudes were measured by questionnaire responses to the open-ended question, "What is your firm's position in regard to pollution of the environment (in your own words)?" Responses were content analyzed and coded into 3 categories: (a) nonaware (51%), (b) aware-lacking concern (30%), and (c) aware-concerned (19%). Pollution attitudes displayed significant relationships with both individual and organizational variables. It is concluded that although pollution is becoming a serious problem in India, awareness and concern are lagging compared to the more developed countries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Educators' attitudes toward working mothers.

In an exploratory study of educators' sex-role perceptions, 411 teachers, administrators, and pupil personnel workers were administered the Attitudes Toward Working Mothers Scale. Administrators and teachers were found to have significantly less positive attitudes toward working mothers than did pupil personnel workers. Within each of the groups, males had the least positive attitudes. Marital status, maternal employment history, and child-bearing status were unrelated to these attitudes. Replication on a second sample (330 Ss) produced similar findings. (58 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dimensions of attitudes toward technology.

Administered an 80-item questionnaire measuring attitudes toward mechanization to 45 undergraduate students in physical science, biological science, social science, and fine arts. Responses were factor analyzed using a varimax rotation. Factor scores were created for 6 of the resulting factors: Global Mechanism, Mechanical Curiosity, Preference for Hand-made Goods, Alienation, Spiritual Benefits of Technology, and Human Vitalism. These factor scores were then used as dependent variables in a multivariate comparison of the students in different major fields. Most of the between-group differences in attitude toward mechanization were reflected by differences in mechanical curiosity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

American attitudes toward intelligence tests.

If one asks a representative group of Americans over 18 about the use of intelligence tests in student selection for school or college or to aid in job promotion selection "he finds that many of them are against the use of intelligence tests. High school students in the U. S. are even more strongly opposed to the use of intelligence tests." Critical attitudes toward tests involve the following issues: Inaccessibility of test data. Invasion of privacy. Rigidity in use of test scores. Types of talent selected by tests. Fairness of tests to minority groups. Among the personal and social characteristics of the critics are: Some people are distinctly hostile to any self examination. People subscribing strongly to aristocratic or equalitarian viewpoints of society may oppose testing. People who have done poorly on tests may have wounded self-esteem leading to test opposition. The punishing effects tests may have had on an individual's life chances may lead to resentment against tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Public attitudes toward psychotherapist-client confidentiality.

What does the general public expect of psychotherapists in terms of confidentiality and third-party access to information? A telephone survey was conducted to examine this issue. Generally, subjects believed that therapy information should not be revealed without authorization, but they nonetheless felt that confidentiality should be broken when a client reveals the occurrence of one of the following: murder (planned or confessed), suicide plans, child abuse, major theft, and treason/sabotage against the U.S. Subjects were concerned about unauthorized release of information to the courts, to a client's spouse, or to insurance companies, but felt that psychotherapists should be free to discuss clients with one another. As opposed to older subjects, younger subjects (aged 18-39) were against unauthorized disclosures to parents or the family doctor and believed that confidentiality should be maintained when a client reports illegal drug use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)