Rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits and its ideological correlates.

"It was predicted that under present social conditions, urban American college students would show substantial individual consistency in the degree to which they manifest rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits (hypothesis 1). Further, on the basis of previous research findings, it was predicted that rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits would be significantly associated with acceptance of fascist or antidemocratic ideology (hypothesis 2)." The data are interpreted as supporting both hypotheses. 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The expressed social attitudes of leading psychologists.

The hypothesis "that psychologists can be divided into two broad groups according to their theoretical and practical interests, and that these groups can also be distinguished along a continuum of toughmindedness and tendermindedness" is examined. A modification of a Public Opinion Inventory developed by Eysenck "… was mailed to each of 52 well-known psychologists" previously dichotomized on the basis of their professional contributions. After factor analysis of returned inventories, instead "… of finding our leading psychologists falling into two groups, we find that they range themselves nicely along a single factor… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal and shared threats upon social prejudice.

The effects of varying types of threat-arousing communications upon the expression of social prejudice was examined. Personal threat groups showed a greater increase in social prejudice than did the control group. Shared threat groups showed a decrease in prejudice in comparison with the control group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Political attitudes and judgments of other people.

"The hypothesis was set up that in judging other people, subjects tend to associate favorable personal characteristics with political attitudes of which they themselves approve." The data tend to support the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rebellious teens? Genetic and environmental influences on the social attitudes of adolescents.

Genetic and environmental influences in social attitudes were investigated in adopted and nonadopted children (N = 654) and their biological and adoptive relatives in the Colorado Adoption Project. Conservatism and religious attitudes were measured in the children annually from ages 12 to 15 and in the parents during the 12-year-old visit. Multivariate genetic model fitting indicated that both conservatism and religious attitudes, are strongly influenced by shared-family environmental factors throughout adolescence. In contrast to previous findings from twin studies, which suggest that genetic influence on social attitudes does not emerge until adulthood, the present study detected significant genetic influence in conservatism as early as age 12. There was no evidence of genetic influence, however, on religious attitudes during adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supervisory ratings and attitudes.

Do supervisors tend to be biased in their ranking and rating of workers? 42 janitors were ranked and rated by 4 supervisors and rated by the division chief. The highest and lowest were compared by 10 factor scores. "Supervisors of our hospital maintenance men valued most the abilities least prevalent in the men (leadership and executive ability) and valued least the attributes most abundant in these men (social adjustment and personal charm). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-appraisal, personal desirability, and perceived social desirability of personality traits.

200 college sophomores took the MMPI 3 times. Analysis showed the following results: (1) Variation of order or time of testing in the personal or social condition seemed to make no difference. (2) Intercorrelations between the 3 forms were low enough to show that the 3 tasks were different. (3) Variance on all 3 forms was lower than in the standardization of the MMPI. (4) The mean profiles were highly similar in all 3 groups. (5) The clinical scales were in general highest on self, as were the Si, A, and obvious scales. The L, K, and subtle scales were in general lowest on self. (6) Results based on analysis of item discrepancies rather than scale comparisons showed that the discrepancies tended to be very sizable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reported driving speeds and previous accidents.

For 275 psychology students, accident records and frequency of traffic citations were compared with self-reported driving speed (slow, medium, fast) and with number of speeding citations. "… individuals in the kind of population considered who report consistently higher driving speeds than average have traffic records free of accidents as often as other drivers. This finding also holds for individuals with previous speeding citations and traffic citations of all kinds." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploratory factor analyses of the behavioral component of social attitudes.

An analysis of the behavioral component of attitudes considered a cube of data. 1 face of the cube consisted of stimulus persons systematically varying in characteristics such as race, social class, occupation, age, and sex. Another face consisted of a sample of social behaviors that the Ss indicated they were willing ( or not willing) to undertake with the stimulus persons. These behaviors were obtained from a content analysis of American novels. The 3rd face of the cube consisted of the characteristics of the Ss answering the "Behavioral Differential." The social behaviors were correlated with each other and the matrix of intercorelations was factor analyzed. The operation was done independently for Ss differing in sex and religion, and the factor structures were compared. The most commonly obtained factors were the Formal Social Acceptance with Subordination, Marital Acceptance, Friendship Acceptance, Social Distance, and Subordination-Superordination factors. For each factor, the percentage variance controlled by each characteristic of the stimulus persons was computed. The significance of these findings for studies on the relationship between attitudes and behavior was discussed. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of personal and social preferences in emotionally disturbed and normal children.

Preferences for friends, colors, and food were studied in institutionalized disturbed children and normal elementary school children, subgrouped at 3 age levels. Stability of preferences for friends and for food indicated at the beginning and end of a 20-min. interval revealed an orderly developmental progression within the normal group. Such consistent developmental trends were not found within the disturbed group and comparison with the normal children showed significantly higher proportions of stable friendship choices and stable food preferences in the normal group. No significant differences in stability of color preferences were found either within or between the groups. Attitudinal stability, within the limits of this exploratory investigation, tended to be specific to each of the 3 areas rather than a general personality characteristic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patient attitudes as related to social class and other variables concerned with hospitalization.

Attitude scores from a factor analytically developed scale were obtained from 55 psychiatric inpatients. These were related to measures of social class, treatment, and demographic variables testing the hypothesis that upper social-class patients would be more in accord with "good mental health" values than would lower social-class patients. It was predicted that these class related attitudes would further relate to type of treatment the patient would receive. Attitudes toward mental health are related to social class and to diagnosis. Some treatment predictions were not testable, but it is clear that somatic treatment is associated with lower social class. The higher the social class the more psychologically oriented the attitude, and conversely, the lower the social class the more rigid and resentful of hospital procedures are the person's attitudes. Attitudes appear to be an important variable in acceptance of and cooperation with current mental-health procedures. These findings are consistent with Hollingshead and Redlich's (1958) contentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental attitudes associated with social deviance in preadolescent boys.

On the assumption that interpersonal behavior of children is a product of parental attitude, peer evaluations of dimensions of interpersonal behavior such as aggression, dependency, withdrawal, depression, and likeability were correlated with responses by parents on a specially devised attitude scale which yielded measures on such dimensions as ambivalence, strictness, punitiveness, encouragement of autonomy, model identity, and a measure of parental adjustment. Among the peer group ratings, likeability was negatively correlated with the other dimensions. The parental attitudes that correlated with boys judged by their peers to be socially deviant were: ambivalence, punitiveness, restrictiveness, and low maternal self-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of positive and negative sociometric valuations to social and personal adjustment of school children.

For students (N = 250) in seven grade-school classes, the frequency of positive and negative sociometric choices was related to scores on the subtests of the California Test of Personality. Frequency of both positive and negative choices was dichotomized into "few" and "many," and the subtest scores were analyzed in a 2 X 2 factorial design created by the four possible combinations of choices. "Seven of the 12 subsections of the… test… produced evidence to indicate a relationship between one's social position among his peers and some aspect of personality adjustment as measured by this test." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Brown adaptation of the Rosenzweig P-F for assessing social attitudes.

"One of the most promising of the projective techniques for assessing social attitudes is the adaption by Brown of the Rosenweig Picture-Frustration Study. The present paper describes a series of small-scale investigations designed to assess the utility of the technique in a variety of situations." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology of drivers in traffic accidents.

50 automobile drivers whose driving involved them in accidents serious enough to require hospitalization were paired with 50 drivers without accident histories but matched according to sex, approximate age, race, and educational level. The Ss were compared on the basis of their driving experiences and performance on written tests. The accident victims differed from the comparison Ss in a higher incidence of previous traffic violations but were not distinguishable from the comparison Ss on any written tests. The accident Ss were similar to the "safe" drivers in describing themselves as much closer to "expert" than "very poor" on a driving performance continuum. In fixing the responsibility for the accidents and in estimating their driving competence at the time of the accidents, the accident Ss' reports are at considerable variance with police reports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior.

The authors propose that when people become fused with a group, their personal and social identities become functionally equivalent. Two hypotheses follow from this proposition. First, activating either personal or social identities of fused persons should increase their willingness to endorse extreme behaviors on behalf of the group. Second, because personal as well as social identities support group-related behaviors of fused persons, the 2 forms of identity may combine synergistically, fostering exceptionally high levels of extreme behavior. Support for these hypotheses came from 5 preliminary studies and 3 experiments. In particular, fused persons were more willing to fight or die for the group than nonfused persons, especially when their personal or social identities had been activated. The authors conclude that among fused persons, both the personal and social self may energize and direct group-related behavior. Implications for related theoretical approaches and for conceptualizing the relationship between personal identities, social identities, and group processes are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between personal and social desirability sets and performance on the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule.

"This study was concerned with the hypothesis that a personal desirability set operates somewhat independently of a social desirability set in determining response selection on the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. To test this hypothesis 248 college Ss were administered the PPS." "It would appear that utilization of only social values for matching purposes does not represent a crucial flaw in Edwards' attempt to minimize desirability of verbal statements as an important source of performance variance." "The hypothesis of some independent effects of personal and social desirability sets upon response endorsement was supported." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive symptoms, social support, and personal health behaviors in young men and women.

This study investigated the relationship of depressive symptoms, social support, and a range of personal health behaviors in 2,091 male and 3,438 female university students from 16 countries. Depressive symptoms and social support were measured using the short Beck Depression Inventory and the Social Support Questionnaire; 9 personal health behaviors were also assessed. After the authors took age, social support, and clustering by country into account, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with lack of physical activity, not eating breakfast, irregular sleep hours, and not using a seat belt in both men and women, and additionally with smoking, not eating fruit, and not using sunscreen among women. Low social support was independently associated with low alcohol consumption, lack of physical activity, irregular sleep hours, and not using a seat belt in men and women. Bidirectional causal pathways are likely to link health behaviors with depressed mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Re-engineering of traffic markers to fit driving space.

The results of numerous empirical investigations comparing the signalling efficiency of conventional flat markers and an experimental curved-surface marker are reported. The curved marker was developed on the hypothesis that its three-dimensional form may alleviate perceptual difficulties produced by the flat shape of conventional markers. An on-site study compared the efficiency of marker types, as have numerous laboratory studies. These studies have a common result, in that the reference aspect of markers is always improved by the curved surface. Several variables other than marker type were tested. Those proved relevant to the perception of markers are their angle of orientation, and colouration and lettering characteristics. The most recent study comprised a traffic count of highway intersections on one major highway. Results proved that many situations can be found in which the curved marker may prove useful in accident prevention and aid the smooth flow of traffic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some personal and situational determinants of yielding to influence.

Factors associated with acceptance of suggestions were studied using boys and girls in Grades 10, 11, and 12. Higher suggestibility was found in girls, in the lower grades, when the source of the suggestion was high in prestige or if the items were difficult. Results are related to previous experiments in the area of conformity and suggestibility. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE11P. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)