Cognitive style and political ideology.

Employed a systematic coding technique to assess the integrative complexity of policy statements of 45 US Senators who, on the basis of their 1975 and 1976 voting records, had been classified as liberal, moderate, or conservative. Two hypotheses were tested. One hypothesis, derived from research on the authoritarian personality and conservatism, was that Ss who consistently voted for conservative ideological causes would be more prone to rely on simple (good vs bad) evaluative rules in interpreting policy issues than liberal or moderate Ss. The 2nd was that Ss who voted in ideologically consistent patterns (regardless of the liberal or conservative content of the ideology) would be more prone to rely on simple evaluative rules in interpreting issues than Ss who voted in less consistent patterns (moderates). 20 paragraph-sized statements were sampled from the speeches of each S; all material was coded for integrative complexity. Results indicate that conservative Ss made significantly less complex statements than their liberal or moderate colleagues. This finding remained significant after controlling for political party affiliation, education, years of service in the Senate, and age. Alternative interpretations of the data are examined. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Liberal and conservative political ideology, experiences of harassment, and perceptions of campus climate.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among racial-ethnic group membership, political ideology (i.e., conservative and liberal), and perceptions of general campus climate (GCC) and of campus climate for racial-ethnic minorities (RECC). One hundred and thirty-six (136) undergraduate, graduate, and professional students participated in this study at a large public Midwestern university. A series of multivariate analyses of variance, hierarchical regressions, and mediation analyses were conducted. Findings indicated that Whites endorsed more positive perceptions of campus climate, reported fewer experiences of racial-ethnic harassment, and endorsed less liberal political ideological beliefs than people of color. No racial differences in conservative ideology emerged. After controlling for racial-ethnic group membership, results showed that experiences of racial-ethnic harassment predicted both GCC and RECC, whereas conservative ideology only predicted RECC. Post hoc analyses demonstrated that experiences of racial-ethnic harassment fully mediated the relationship between racial-ethnic group membership and GCC, but only partially mediated the relationship between racial-ethnic group membership and RECC. Neither conservative nor liberal ideologies were significant mediators. Implications for future research and practice are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism and "Tolerance of Trait Inconsistency."

The California F Scale was found to correlate positively with a paper-and-pencil measure of propensity to expect people to be thoroughly good or thoroughly bad. As a further explanation of this relationship, Ss in a laboratory situation were given mildly derogatory information about one respected partner and nonderogatory information about another respected partner. Ss who had scored high on the F Scale resisted the mildly derogatory information and continued to rate their 2 partners about equally favorably. Low F Ss lowered their evaluations of the partner about whom mildly derogatory information had been received and gave their 2 partners final ratings which were more unequally favorable than those given by high scorers. Low F Ss also conformed more unequally to the judgments expressed by the 2 partners than did high scorers. These experimental findings are interpreted to reflect the greater reluctance of high scorers to believe that "good people" possess a mixture of good and bad attributes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The end of the end of ideology.

The "end of ideology" was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that (a) ordinary citizens' political attitudes lack the kind of stability, consistency, and constraint that ideology requires; (b) ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational potency and behavioral significance; (c) there are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and conservative points of view; and (d) there are few important differences in psychological processes (or styles) that underlie liberal versus conservative orientations. The end-of-ideologists were so influential that researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years. However, current political realities, recent data from the American National Election Studies, and results from an emerging psychological paradigm provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology. Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement. Situational variables--including system threat and mortality salience--and dispositional variables--including openness and conscientiousness--affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties, and opinions. A psychological analysis is also useful for understanding the political divide between "red states" and "blue states." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personalizing Politics: A Congruency Model of Political Preference.

Modern politics become personalized as individual characteristics of voters and candidates assume greater importance in political discourse. Although personalities of candidates capture center stage and become the focus of voters' preferences, individual characteristics of voters, such as their traits and values, become decisive for political choice. The authors' findings reveal that people vote for candidates whose personality traits are in accordance with the ideology of their preferred political party. They also select politicians whose traits match their own traits. Moreover, voters' traits match their own values. The authors outline a congruency model of political preference that highlights the interacting congruencies among voters' self-reported traits and values, voters' perceptions of leaders' personalities, politicians' self-reported traits, and programs of favored political coalitions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlates of two types of xenophilic orientation.

"A sample of 422 college students at Boston University responded to scales measuring tendencies toward xenophilia, authoritarianism, hostility toward typical Americans, willingness to stereotype, and interest in travelling abroad… . High scorers on the Xenophile Scale can be distinguished from low scorers on the above dimensions. High xenophiles seem to be more willing to stereotype, express hostility toward typical Americans, and express a stronger desire to travel than low xenophiles. Predictions were made concerning two varieties of high xenophiles, high scorers and low scorers on the California F scale. It was found that the low authoritarians were more attracted to things foreign than the highs along several dimensions. Furthermore among low scorers on the Xenophile scale, clear distinctions were found among the high and low F scale scorers. The highs were more willing to stereotype than were the lows." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality.

Proposes a framework establishing resonances or coherent patterns among sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality. Two studies are described, one with law and criminology students, the other with probation officers. Relations among the different types of variables reveal two resonances among both students and officers. One comprises various conservative and moralistic elements: a tough, punitive stance toward crime; belief in individual causality for crime; high scores on authoritarianism, dogmatism, and internal locus of control; lower moral stage; and political conservatism. The second comprises various liberal elements: rehabilitation, belief in economic and other external determinants of crime, higher moral stage, and belief in the powers and responsibilities of government to correct social problems. Implications are discussed for individual differences in sentencing, attribution theory, and attempts to reduce disparity. (59 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and politicians: California party leaders, 1960–1976.

2,157 presidential delegation slate members during 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976 in California were assessed on the 24 personality scales of the Adjective Check List. Ss differed from the general norms in their higher scores on self-confidence, achievement, and dominance and their lower scores on succorance, abasement, and deference; this pattern displayed transhistorical consistency. In the context of overall profile similarity, Republicians (Rs) differed from Democrats (Ds) by scoring higher than average and higher than the Ds on personal adjustment, order, self-control, and endurance and lower than average and lower than the Ds on change and succorance. Ds scored higher than average and higher than Rs on lability, exhibition, and autonomy. Findings support the transhistorical consistency of liberal–conservative differences in personal style and point to the existence of distinctive patterns of interpersonal behavior for Rs and Ds. Implications for the social atmosphere of party functioning are delineated. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control and college women's role expectations.

Hypothesized that college women's locus of control orientations would be related to their role expectations, with women with an external locus of control having lower aspirations, more conservative sex-role ideologies, and less involvement in career planning than women with an internal locus of control. 116 female college juniors and seniors completed a career expectation scale, the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (ANSIE), and an index of sympathy for women's liberation ideology. Regression analyses using ANSIE scores as the predictor variable supported the hypotheses. Compared to Ss with internal orientations, Ss with external orientations expected to have less commitment to their careers, to work for a smaller portion of their lives, and to feel more discomfort due to violating sex-role stereotypes. In addition, Ss with a more external orientation reported less career planning activity, less positive feelings about their future careers, and more conservative views on women's liberation ideology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Protestant Ethic, conservatism, and values.

Administered the Protestant Ethic Scale, the Conservatism Scale, and the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) to 140 undergraduates to determine if Ss with a strong Protestant Ethic value (the "work ethic") also tended to have conservative social attitudes. Results show a significant postive relationship between scores on the 2 measures. Scores on both tests were also associated with the relative importance assigned to some of the terminal and instrumental values (positively to salvation, obedience, and self-control; negatively to world of beauty, mature love, being broad-minded, and imaginative) from the RVS. It is suggested that part of the causal fabric underlying economic development might involve some conservative respect for predictability, discipline, and order and that the findings support the thesis of M. Weber (1904–1905 [translated by T. Parsons, 1976]) that economic development is linked to Protestant Ethic values. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensation Seeking Scale as a predictor of need for stimulation during sensory restriction.

Tested the hypothesis that the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) predicts strength of need for stimulation under conditions of sensory restriction. The SSS was administered to 214 male undergraduates. During a 3-hr isolation period, 15 high- and 15 low-SSS scorers were free to button press for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic stimulation. Except for visual stimulation high-SSS scorers button pressed at a higher rate than low-SSS scorers, but the differences were not significant. Low-SSS scorers showed a significantly greater need for visual stimulation than high-SSS scorers. High-SSS scorers showed a significant preference for kinesthetic stimulation, while low-SSS scorers had a significant preference for visual stimulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Possible self as parent in Canadian, Italian, and Japanese young adults.

Developed the Scale of Possible Selves (SPS) and hypothesized that possible self-as-parent (PPS) items would predict favourable perceptions of infants, and that PPS scores would vary across gender and nations. Exp 1: 683 Canadian undergraduates completed the SPS; high and low parent possible-self subgroups (HPS or LPS) viewed and rated videotaped infants. The HPS group responded more quickly than the LPS group only to the parent items of the SPS, and the HPS group had significantly more favourable social perceptions of infants. Exp 2: the PPS scores of Canadian young adults were compared with counterparts in Italy and Japan. Japanese participants had lower SPS scores than Canadians or Italians. The latter did not differ significantly from each other. Italian women had higher PPS scores than Italian men. It is suggested that the possible self-as-parent might be a useful concept for examining reproductive choices, career choices, and attitudes and reactions to infants and children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical Status of At-Risk Individuals 5 Years Later: Further Validation of the Psychometric High-Risk Strategy.

The authors hypothesized that at-risk individuals identified on the basis of their Chapman scale scores would be diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders at follow-up. In the present study, the authors interviewed 135 young adults approximately 5 years following their initial assessment. The at-risk groups included high scorers on the Perceptual Aberration and/or Magical Ideation Scales (n = 59) and high scorers on the revised Social Anhedonia Scale (n = 32). The control participants (n = 44) scored below 0.5 SD of the same-sex group means on all the scales. At the follow-up, the groups differed in terms of their likelihood of having a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis, Χ2(2) = 9.79, p     

The reinforcing effect of uncertainty reduction on a human operant.

Results of Exp. I and II indicate that 56 female undergraduates preferred (as indicated by key-press responses) to view a clear version of a preceding blurred object over viewing an unrelated but comparable clear object but only when the identity of the blurred object was unknown. In Exp. III with 12 Ss, subjective uncertainty, equated to the average information formula, where N was the number of guesses as to the identity of the blurred object and pi was the relative confidence placed in each guess, was found to be an inverted U-shaped function of blurredness. This finding was used in Experiment IV, with 60 Ss, to accurately predict that the number of key-presses obtaining clear versions of blurred objects would be an inverted U-shaped function of blurredness. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social desirability questionnaire for young children.

The Young Children's Social Desirability Scale based on the MMPI L scale model was constructed and administered to 437 nursery school children. Split-half reliabilities were substantial for children over 4 and moderate for those under 4; test-retest reliabilities were moderate for children over 4 and mixed for those under 4. Social desirability scores increased with age, showed a low positive relationship to picture vocabulary IQ, and were unrelated to sex in a high-socioeconomic sample, but were higher for girls in a more general sample. 3 construct validation studies are summarized which indicate that children who score high on the scale are more motivated than low scorers to respond positively to interpersonal demands. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the utility of alternative procedures for assessing psychological androgyny.

S. L. Bem's definition of psychological androgny as the integration of both masculinity and femininity within a single individual obscures a potentially important distinction between those individuals who score high on both masculinity and femininity and those who score low on both. To assess the importance of this distinction, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory was administered to 375 male and 290 female undergraduates, along with a variety of other pencil-and-paper questionnaires, and in addition, the results of Bem's earlier laboratory studies were reanalyzed with the low-low scorers separated out. High-high and low-low scorers did not differ significantly on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, the Mach IV Scale, or the Attitudes Toward Problem-Solving Scale, nor did they differ significantly in 2 of Bem's 3 previous studies. Nevertheless, low-low scorers were significantly lower in self-esteem (Texas Social Behavior Inventory) than high-high scorers, they displayed significantly less responsiveness toward a kitten, and, among men, they reported significantly less self-disclosure (Jourard's Self-Disclosure Scale). Although the results are not consistent, it is concluded that a distinction between high-high and low-low scorers does seem to be warranted. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control as a measure of ineffectiveness in anorexia nervosa.

Using D. W. Reid and E. E. Ware's (1974) Internal–External Locus of Control Scale (I–E scale), scores of 54 female anorexia nervosa patients were compared to norms. Younger anorexic patients (mean age 16.3 yrs) demonstrated higher internal control compared to norms on items related to fatalism and social-system control. I–E scores for older patients (mean age 21.2 yrs) could not be differentiated from the norms. Comparison of high (external) with low (internal) scorers within the sample revealed significant differences on clinical variables related to weight history, eating habits, and psychosocial behavior. In addition, externality was associated with symptomatic scores on the Beck Depression Scale, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Restraint Scale, and 16 PF. It is concluded that the I–E scale may provide a useful prognostic index for the subgroup of anorexic patients who demonstrate external I–E orientation. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A quantitative analysis of the relationship between the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale and traditional coronary artery disease risk factors.

One possible explanation for the association between Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (Ho Scale; W. W. Cook & D. M. Medley, 1954) scores and premature coronary artery disease (CAD) morbidity and mortality is that hostile persons also have elevations on CAD risk factors. Meta-analyses with fixed and random-effects models were used to evaluate the relationship between Ho Scale scores and CAD risk factors in the empirical literature. Ho Scale scores were significantly related to body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, insulin resistance, lipid ratio, triglycerides, glucose, socioeconomic status (SES), alcohol consumption, and smoking. Although there was also heterogeneity among study outcomes, the results of conservative random effects models provide confidence in the obtained relationships. On the basis of available evidence, researchers might give attention to obesity, insulin resistance, damaging health behaviors, and SES as potential contributing factors in understanding the association between Ho Scale scores and CAD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability responding in the measurement of assertive behavior.

Investigated social desirability responding in the measurement of assertive behavior. 30 22–56 yr old middle-class women completed self-report and analogue behavioral measures of assertion and anxiety before and after assertiveness training. The measures included the Assertion Inventory, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and role-played assertiveness scenes during a telephone call. Consistent with social desirability theory and research, high social desirability scorers described themselves as more assertive and less anxious than low scorers, but were behaviorally less assertive than low scorers. Although both high and low scorers improved their assertion skills, high scorers did not appear less anxious after assertiveness training, unlike low scorers. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Laboratory observations of aggregative behavior of garter snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis: Roles of the visual, olfactory, and vomeronasal senses.

Two experiments determined (a) whether male garter snakes require a functional vomeronasal or olfactory system to return to previously preferred shelter locations and (b) the sensory modalities used to aggregate in the absence of previously deposited chemical cues. In Exp I, 22 male garter snakes with vomeronasal nerve lesions did not return to previously preferred shelter locations when tested individually. However, when tested with a group that included 9 control Ss, they returned to previously preferred shelters. The shelter-selection behavior of Ss with olfactory nerve lesions improved postoperatively, whereas the behavior of Ss with sham lesions was unchanged. In Exp II, 32 Ss were tested for aggregation in aquaria in which the substrate and other contents were cleaned between trials. After blindfolding or olfactory nerve cuts, Ss aggregated at normal levels. When Ss' vomeronasal ducts were sutured closed, aggregation scores were significantly depressed, although 2 of the 3 groups with vomeronasal duct sutures did aggregate just above change levels. Results from both studies indicate that use of chemical signals by garter snakes in shelter selection and aggregation is mediated by the vomeronasal system and that neither the olfactory nor the visual system is critical for these behaviors. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)