The specificity of intolerance of ambiguity measures.

The hypothesis tested is that intolerance of ambiguity is a generalized trait. Ss were 76 volunteer female adults with a mean age of 24. The test battery consisted of 12 measures of intolerance of ambiguity, 1 attitude measure of authoritarian-submission, and 7 measures of aggression. "Only 7 of the 66 correlations among measures of intolerance of ambiguity were significant at the .05 level, 2 of these having a relationship opposite to those predicted. In the main, these measures did not correlate significantly with a scale of authoritarian-submission." The results are considered to offer little support for a general construct of intolerance of ambiguity. 20 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race prejudice and intolerance of ambiguity in children.

On the basis of tests given to 154 fourth and fifth grade children selected from the public schools of a midwest town, there appears to be no demonstrable relationship between prejudice, as defined by the Horowitz Faces Test and 6 operational definitions of intolerance of ambiguity involving decision time and various analyses of sociometric and Guess Who data. "Since anti-Negro race prejudice, at least in the midwest, is considered to be an important component of the perhaps more general term, ethnocentrism, this study does not support notions of an invariable relationship between ethnocentrism and intolerance of ambiguity… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of psychological stress on the "intolerance of ambiguity."

"The hypothesis that psychological stress will result in increased intolerance for ambiguity is supported by the generally significant differences between the stress and security groups on the experimental measures." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interrelation among some measures of rigidity under stress and nonstress conditions.

"Seven tests of rigidity, measuring different aspects of the variable, and a test of achievement motivation were given to 50 male airmen under ego-involved conditions and to 50 under relaxed conditions. In addition an intelligence measure was available. The results were: 1. Ego-involved conditions did not produce an increase in rigid behavior. 2. There was no evidence of a general interrelation between the various measures of rigidity. 3. Ego-involved conditions produced no increase in interrelation between measures of rigidity. 4. Achievement motivation did increase under ego-involved conditions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some personality and intellectual correlations of intolerance of ambiguity.

The relations among authoritarianism, intelligence, ambiguity tolerance, and adequacy of personal adjustment are investigated, employing 20 male undergraduates as subjects. Authoritarianism correlates positively with manifest anxiety and negatively with intelligence, measured by academic achievement, and ego structure as estimated by an experienced clinical psychologist. No significant relation is found between authoritarianism and tolerance of ambiguous visual or auditory stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Authoritarianism" and authority.

The author discusses and contrasts the psychological concept of "authoritarian personality" with the popular concept of similar name and stresses the clear need for a distinction between both concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism and interpersonal perception.

This study is a replication of research concerning the relationship between authoritarianism, as measured by the California F scale and accuracy of interpersonal perception. Ss were students at Kansas State College, and the method was similar to that used previously by Scodel and Mussen and by Scodel and Freedman. Pairs of Ss discussed for 20 minutes an assigned topic after taking the F scale. After the discussion they were asked to fill out the F scale as they felt their partners in the discussion would respond to it. The previous findings were duplicated by this study. The mean estimate by high F Ss was very similar to the mean of the high F Ss' own scores, regardless of the partners' actual positions on the F scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism, punitiveness, and perceived social status.

Ss were 101 introductory psychology students, 48 of whom were high scorers and 53 of whom were low scorers on an authoritarianism scale. A series of 24 separate stimulus cards of a semiprojective nature similar to the Rosenzweig pictures studied some of the interrelationships among authoritarianism, punitiveness, and status. The data indicate that low authoritarians respond to frustrators independently of their status. "… punitiveness is a function of both the personality of the individual and the particular stimulus environment that elicits the behavior." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism, ideology, and political candidate choice.

2 experiments were conducted investigating the relationship between F Scale scores and preference for the candidates of a particular party or ideology. Exp. I showed that Ss with high scores on the F Scale preferred the Republican party and voted for Nixon while those with low scores preferred the Democratic party and voted for Kennedy. The relationship was hypothesized to appear because (a) both candidates clearly differed in the degree to which they represetned liberal and conservative ideologies, (b) the voters possessed an ideological outlook, and (c) liberal or conservative values were more salient than other factors in the choice of candidates. In Exp. II, 3 samples of students were presented with different pairs of candidates: liberal Democrat and conservative Republican, liberal Republican and conservative Democrat, and candidates ideologically equated. Ignoring candidate ideology, there was no relationship between F score and party vote. When ideology was taken into account, high scorers voted for the conservative candidate and low scorers voted for the liberal candidate regardless of party label. When the stimulus figures were equated ideologically there was no relationship between F scores and choice. There was no support for the hypothesis that choices by high scorers were more subject to the pressure of group norms than those of low scorers. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Proposed Re-Definition of Authoritarianism.

In the common usages of the word, authoritarianism has been most widely employed with this connotation of dependency upon authority rather than upon the self for arriving at truth or an ideology. The author feels that if a battery of scales could be devised, measuring authoritarianism in a number of areas of belief, scores could be factor analyzed, and it might be possible to determine whether authoritarianism is a general trait of personality, or whether it is situational, e.g., manifesting itself in those areas where the person has least opportunity for making autonomous observations and conclusions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism, leader acceptance, and group cohesion.

An examination of the validity of the Frommian compromise between leader-centered and member-centered theories of group cohesiveness is made, using a sample of enlisted men of the Air Defense Command. The variables of authoritarianism and leader-acceptance were measured in this sample by means of Likert-type scales. The Frommian hypothesis is supported to some extent, since, as expected, under conditions of military organization, more high authoritarians than low apparently accept or idealize their formally designated leader; and, attractive force of the group is apparently stronger for high than for low scorers on the authoritarianism scale. The strong positive association between leader acceptance and group cohesion, for high authoritarians, that is expected on the Frommian hypothesis is not found. A discussion of the Frommian compromise is then made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism, verbal ability, and response set.

The relationship of authoritarianism (as measured by the F scale) to year of college and response set were tested and discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism scales and response bias.

Scales of authoritarianism differ from other self-report measures like the MMPI in ways that make them particularly susceptible to agreement response bias: (1) depending particularly on item content in relation to a theoretical syndrome; (2) using ambiguous items; (3) scoring all items in 1 direction. Fittingly, evidence now indicates that response bias is a major factor on authoritarian scales and not on the MMPI. This evidence can be maintained against the counterproposals of Rokeach and Samelson. Support is reiterated for interpreting (1) response bias not mechanically but as a response tendency when the S is uncertain; (2) high authoritarianism scale scores as representing simple-mindedness more than authoritarian ideologies. The latter interpretation is supported not only for college students but even more from survey data for the general population. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introversion, neuroticism, rigidity, and dogmatism.

There are two problems concerning the often hypothesized relationship between neuroticism and behavioral rigidity. First, are there personality dimensions other than neuroticism which affect the relationship? Eysenck (1947) hypothesized that introverted neurotics are rigid, but that extroverted neurotics are not. Second, Rokeach (1960) offered a distinction between rigidity and dogmatism, in which rigidity can be defined as the inability to produce novel or changed responses while dogmatism can be defined as an inability to utilize novel responses which have been produced. Which of these two types of inflexibility characterizes neurotics? To explore for answers for these two questions, a 2 × 2 experimental design was set up. Two conclusions follow from this study. The first is that it is inappropriate to speak loosely of the "rigidity" or "inflexibility" of neurotic behavior, as it was shown that neurotics are not different from non-neurotics in their ability to produce novel responses, but only in their ability to utilize such responses. Secondly, not all neurotics manifest this inability; it is shown by introverted neurotics only. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism and leadership choice in a military setting.

"A study was undertaken to determine the relationship between F-scale scores and leadership status among officer indoctrinees. The major hypothesis was that there would be a significant positive relationship between scores on a measure of authoritarianism and leadership acceptance by peers in a military setting… . Correlational and chi-square analysis tested the hypothesis and indicated a significant negative relationship between authoritarianism and leadership." 22 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some determinants of behavioral rigidity.

"The tests of rigidity included in this study have all been used in at least one other investigation as measures of rigidity. Three equivalent groups of Ss were tested the day before, one day after, and one week after a real-life stress situation which was presumed to arouse feelings of insecurity. Tau correlation coefficients were computed for the scores of every test with every other test, and appeared to yield essentially a chance distribution. Furthermore, coefficients of concordance among these measures did not approach statistical significance. Therefore, it was concluded that there is no general factor among a number of so-called measures of rigidity under varying conditions of security." 21 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of behavioral rigidity.

A battery of rigidity tests, some of which were selected from the literature and others which were newly constructed were administered to a group of 216 Ss selected to represent a wide range of age, occupation, and education. Factor analysis of the results resulted in the rejection of the hypothesis of a single rigidity factor. Instead, behavioral rigidity seems best described by three factors, interpreted as "motor-cognitive speed," "personality-perceptual rigidity," and "motor-cognitive rigidity." Subsequent testing on another population produced a simple structure matrix in substantial agreement with that obtained from the first sample. Norms and test manual are made available through the American Documentation Institute. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual rigidity and closure as functions of anxiety.

Ss chosen from an introductory class in psychology were given the Grice Revision of the Taylor Scale of Manifest Anxiety. High and low scorers were evenly divided as to sex and assigned to threatening or non-threatening instruction groups. Perceptual tasks were then administered. The results indicated that threat induced anxiety modified perceptual processes significantly in the case of tachistoscopic closure, rigidity, and stability. These three functions involve maintaining constancy of a previously established percept in the face of incompatible cues from the environment. Manifest anxiety was related only to the stability test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses to cognitive and perceptual ambiguity in chronic and acute schizophrenics.

Responses of 25 acute and 34 chronic schizophrenics to perceptual and cognitive ambiguity were compared with those of 36 normal control Ss by means of: several "decision location" series consisting of blurred photographs presented in the order of increasing clarity; a series of pictures which could be matched, at Ss' discretion, with a number of statements allegedly made by the persons pictured; a series of pictures to be similarly matched with nationality names. The chronic Ss compared to normals offered earlier recognition responses on the perceptual task and matched more items on the cognitive measures. The scores of the acute group, however, yielded uniformly negative results and were found to be intermediate in relation to those of the chronic and normal Ss. (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)