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This experiment compared a weighted-average model from information integration theory with McGuire's inoculation theory as explanations of the "paper tiger" effect. Ss were 24 male and 24 female American college students. Procedure and design were similar to that used by McGuire, and his messages were used verbatim. Each S indicated his attitude on each of four health issues and also made direct estimates of the weight and scale value of each piece of information upon his attitude. An apparent paper tiger effect was observed for some issues, but the opposite effect was observed for other issues. The predictions of the averaging model were quite good in six of eight cases. The two discrepancies seemed to reflect an underestimation of the importance of attacking message. Overall, the results were interpreted as supportive of the informational interpretation. No need was found for the motivational concepts of belief threat and refutational practice used in inoculation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper that reports the successful prediction of attitudes toward an international incident on the basis of scores on the California F scale. Some 20 minutes after leaving Miami, Florida, one morning late in July 1961, the pilot of a commercial airplane was forced at gunpoint to alter course and fly to Havana, Cuba, with his crew and 32 passengers. News media reported the hijacking and indicated that a fully armed U.S. Air Force plane had intercepted the hijacked plane and had followed it but had turned back as the commercial plane approached Havana. The evening reports of news media in Miami headlined this story and featured a call by Florida's Senator for U.S. Military forces to be sent into Havana to recover the airplane. At this point it was predicted that persons favorable to this view would score higher on the California F scale than those unfavorable to it. It was hypothesized that an individual's attitude toward authoritarianism would play an important role in shaping his reaction to the recommendation that military force be used.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the attitudes of foreign students toward American democratic ideals as carried out by most people in the United States, and to examine the conditions under which they develop their attitudes. The subjects were 304 foreign students who attended Purdue University during the second semester of the academic year 1959-60. Data were gathered by mailed questionnaires. The statistical analysis showed that almost all foreign students felt that most people in the United States were less democratically oriented than the students themselves. The only exceptions were Arab, Greek, and Siamese students. Democratic orientation scores of subjects from six countries, namely, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Iran, India, Japan, and Nigeria differed significantly from the scores attributed to most people in the United States. Favorable attitudes toward American democratic orientation were found to be related significantly to two intervening variables, namely, favorable experiences encountered by foreign students in the United States, and adjustment to the academic and social life on American campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on experimental investigation of the pull effect. A comparison of the supporters of U.S. senators Joseph McCarthy, Adlai Stevenson and Dwight D. Eisenhower has been done. Anti-McCarthy subjects when compared to pro-McCarthy subjects will tend to give a lower estimate of the strength of McCarthy's support in a perceptually ambiguous situation, and Pro-Stevenson subjects when compared to pro-Eisenhower subjects will tend to give a higher estimate of Stevenson's support in a perceptually ambiguous situation. Attitudes toward McCarthy may involve much more strong feeling titan attitudes relating to Eisenhower and Stevenson. The question relating to Eisenhower and Stevenson was retrospective in nature while that relating to McCarthy demanded awareness of the immediate status of the Senator, and in this respect, exposure to many polls, to the actual election results, and to post-election analyses may have operated to reduce the ambiguity of the Eisenhower-Stevenson issue.

The article reports on a preliminary study of the relative standing, in both schooling and ready knowledge, of groups of liberal and conservative U. S. adults. The article states that the findings of the study provide a new perspective on the "attitudes-enlightenment" problem, and seem to afford some clews as to where certain types of education and information campaigns might make headway and where they might encounter important psychological barriers. The article provides information about the procedures or methods taken for arranging the data for the study. One of the techniques employed in the study was "Contrasted Groups" in which people in the survey who approved or agreed with a criterion attitude question were compared on information and education with people who disapproved or disagreed with the proposition. The result or the findings were summarized in form of tables. The 16 attitude areas were indicated in the first column together with the approximate date or dates when the questions were asked, and with the putatively liberal answers in capital letters. The most obvious conclusion is, apparently, that no consistent superiority obtains for either liberals or conservatives.

In recent years there have been many studies of the social and personal determinants of helping behavior among Americans. While these studies have greatly increased our understanding of helpful behavior, very few have attempted to demonstrate simple ways of increasing helpfulness in the natural environment. Isen and Levine reported that the fortuitous discovery of a dime in the coin return of a pay telephone greatly increased helpfulness. They reported that 88% of the subjects finding a dime later assisted an unknown stranger who dropped an armload of papers, while only 4% of the control subjects (those who did not find a dime), assisted the stranger. Their results suggested that even a trivial fortuitous event may produce a massive increase in helpfulness. In a society in which the lack of interpersonal helpfulness appears to be one of the major problems of the times, Isen and Levine's results, if replicated, have important theoretical and social implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The authors explored attitudes of young women in the United Kingdom (n = 108) and the United States (n = 91) toward (a) the possession and use of guns through the Attitude to Guns Scale (N. R. Branscombe, J. A. Weir, & P. Crosby, 1992) and (b) guns' perceived functional and symbolic significance through the Symbolic Nature of Guns Scale (C. A. Cooke & J. E. Puddifoot, 1997). There were significant differences in beliefs concerning the fight to own a gun and the protective effect of guns but not in the perceived contribution of guns to crime. Although neither group strongly equated guns symbolically with power or control, the U.S. women were more likely to perceive guns as expressions of freedom or independence, and the U.K. women were more likely to view guns as expressions of danger and violence. The findings were contextualized by comparison with samples of male control participants of similar ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of relationship length on the perceived appropriateness and intensity of the experience and expression of romantic jealousy among American students was explored. Linear increases in perceived appropriateness and intensity of jealousy were predicted. The results largely supported the hypotheses, with jealousy experience, expression, and perceived appropriateness of jealousy expression increasing over time. However, the perceived appropriateness of jealousy experience did not vary significantly across relationship lengths. Ethnic differences in perceptions of appropriateness of jealousy experience and expression were also found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the type and importance of self-description by conducting open-ended interviews among Mexican American and Anglo American adolescents. The primary goal in this study was to examine the role of importance in the self-description process. An open-ended interview format was used with individuals from two cultures in the United States, a Mexican American sample, traditionally defined as collectivistic, and an Anglo American sample, traditionally defined as individualistic. Both the quantity and importance of the self-descriptor responses were assessed. A secondary goal was to use the principles of collectivism to make predictions about an issue that is relevant to adolescence-academic achievement. Two findings regarding the role of importance in the self-description process emerged. First, the measure of total importance corroborated previous research, which had assumed that the quantity of responses for each response type was indicative of the relative importance of the response type. Second, the current set of findings suggests that importance may also be measured in an alternative way by calculating the average importance, thereby providing unique information.

This article presents a cross-cultural study on the stereotyping of African and European Americans in the United States. In the present study researchers attempted to add to the cross-cultural database needed to supplement an understanding of the dynamics of racial stereotyping in the U.S. Specifically, researchers were interested in the extent to which Africans would distinguish between Americans of African and European descent. The fact that Africans share a cultural heritage with African Americans but maintain out-group status on the basis of nationality made them an especially intriguing and relevant sample. The results indicated that the Africans surveyed did not hold negative stereotypes of African Americans. Indeed, with the exception of being seen as more superstitious, African American stereotypes were more positive than those of European Americans, with African Americans perceived as more friendly, polite, religious, and generous. Finally, this study replicated the widely reported finding that the stereotypes of African Americans are less homogeneous and consistent than the stereotypes of European Americans.

The relationship between age and the perceived value of pay (valence) was investigated for a sample of 453 nonunionized female employees at an American apparel plant. Pay valence was determined using a "pay addressing needs" format, suggested by Lawler (1971). For workers up to age 40, pay valence appeared higher for younger workers, but for workers older than 40 pay valence was unrelated to age. The ability of pay to satisfy specific Maslowian needs decreased with age (except with respect to physiological needs) for workers up to age 40. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates in three contexts the influence of causal attributions on consumers' reactions to inequitable exchange. It informs that the concept of equity has made its way into the field of marketing via social psychological models of consumer decision making. The rationale is that, inasmuch as consumer responses to inequitable treatment can have a negative, long-term effect on the success of an organization, the factors underlying such responses have to be understood. The influence of causal attributions on consumers' reactions to inequitable exchange was examined in three contexts: the level of distress perceived as a function of the degree of inequity; the moderating effect of consumer attributions on the inequity-distress relationship; and consumers' likely response as a function of their perceived locus of causality. Results based on a field experiment using 300 American women in a deceptive advertising setting, support the traditional distributive and procedural justice model but suggest that more complex (cognitive) paradigms are necessary to explain aggrieved consumers' interpretations of fairness by marketers.

The article investigates the situational and dispositional components of reactions toward disabled persons. It informs that the situational and dispositional components of reactions toward disabled persons were investigated in a hypothetical format. Initially, a sample of U.S. college students indicated the level of anticipated emotional arousal to 70 brief descriptions of situations in which contact with disabled people might occur on a college campus. Mean ratings were used to select nine-situation descriptors representing a range of anticipated arousal levels. Subsequently, a separate sample of students completed the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale and were presented with one of the nine situation descriptors. Participants imagined themselves in the situation described (with a person with an immediately, obvious disability) and indicated how they would feel and respond by completing various measures. It explains that results indicated that emotional arousal and other reactions were attributable to main effects for: both situational and attitudinal factors, whereas the statistical interactions between the two were not significant.

The article investigates children's philanthropic behavior in a Jewish school in the United States. Children ordinarily possess little money, and some way has to be found to give it to them before researchers, in turn, can study how they give it away. Some researchers circumvented this problem by asking children in the fifth through eighth grades to respond to a hypothetical scenario in which they won money in a game. They were given five choices; distribute it equally among themselves, give it to the person who scored the highest, buy something for the school, buy something for their class, or "buy something for some hospital child or some family needing help or for some other philanthropy." No consistent changes were found in children's willingness to donate as they grew older. The study was conducted in a Jewish supplementary school affiliated with a reform synagogue located in a suburban, Northern California community. The term supplementary school refers to a part-time Jewish school that conducts classes in Judaica and the Hebrew language. The school enrolled approximately 250 students, from kindergarten through the 10th grade. The majority enrolled only in the Sunday morning or Tuesday 'evening Judaica program, whereas others attended the full program, which included two midweek sessions devoted to Hebrew language instruction.

This article reports on two interrelated studies designed to explore the structure of the components of stereotyping. The research probes two theoretical issues: first, that systems of stereotypes can be viewed as a multidimensional structure; and second, that stereotyping systems can be better understood in terms of their components. Two targets were selected as the attitude objects of study, Jews and atheists. Jews were chosen because they represent a traditional American group about whom 30 years of baseline stereotyping data exist against which the results of our analytic techniques can be checked. Since beliefs about Jews were expected to be highly differentiated and organized, atheists were chosen as a second target -- one that would evoke a relatively diffuse set of beliefs. The two studies presented here attempted to explore the structure and salience of stereotypes through an analysis of atheist and Jewish stereotypes. In the first study, two sets of atheist stereotypes--one positive and one negative-- and three sets of Jewish stereotypes--two negative and one positive--were isolated through factor analysis.

One hundred seventy foreign postgraduate medical students who were training in this country were asked to report the frequency of their personal contacts with their home countrymen and their United States hosts, their attitudes toward their home countries, their motivations for seeking specialty training in the United States, and their satisfaction with their training programs and the United States. It was found that frequency of their personal contacts with their home countrymen had a prominent effect upon nationalistic attitudes, motivation, and adjustment. Overall results were explained in accordance with reference group theory; and its corollary, anticipatory socialization (acculturation), was utilized to explain the differences observed among the subject groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents practical expression to the primacy-recency problem in persuasion. The conflicting results obtained by the investigators may be viewed in retrospect as presaging a series of later studies that have generated similarly contradictory and inconclusive findings. Scientists presented subjects with arguments both proposing and attacking higher protective tariffs for the United States. Half of subjects heard the affirmative argument first, and the remaining half heard the negative argument first. Opinion questionnaires were administered initially to all of the subjects and again after each of the two opposing communications. In the present experiment, Japanese university students were exposed to conflicting communications on the subject of the Cold War in an attempt to determine whether the first or the second of the arguments would be more effective in influencing attitudes. The possibility existed that the lively concern of Japanese students with international issues might generate results less equivocal than those that have been reported with American subjects.

Ratings of the leaders' Initiation of Structure and Consideration were obtained from members of 36 intercultural discussion groups consisting of one American and one Indian graduate student plus an American leader. Ratings of Group Atmosphere, Esteem for Leader, and Effectiveness of Leader were also obtained after each group had completed an intercultural-negotiation task and also after completing a group-creativity task. Results showed that on both tasks the American and the Indian members' Esteem for Leader ratings and Group Atmosphere ratings were positively correlated with their leaders' considerate behaviors, but were not related to their leaders' structuring behaviors. The leaders' effectiveness, as rated by Americans, was positively correlated with both Consideration and Initiation of Structure scores. When rated by the Indian subjects, the leaders' effectiveness was correlated only with their Consideration scores. The leaders' self-ratings of Consideration and Initiation of Structure were positively correlated with their own ratings of the Group Atmosphere and with their ratings of their own Effectiveness. The group- performance scores were unrelated to Consideration ratings; however, group performance was positively related to the Initiation of Structure ratings (but this finding was specific to the culture and the task). The results were discussed in terms of differences in "role expectations" between the two cultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is a continuation of earlier investigations concerning marriage-role attitudes of Americans of Japanese and Caucasian ancestry and motherland Japanese. A total of 226 Ss (131 Caucasian-Americans and 95 Japanese-Americans) were tested. All Ss were students at the California State College at Los Angeles. Comparisons with previously collected data from Japanese, Japanese-Americans, and Caucasian Americans were made. To assess attitudes toward marriage a 28-item, five-choice scale, devised by Jacobson to measure male-dominant and equalitarian attitudes toward marriage, was used. Males generally were found to be more male dominant in marriage-role attitudes, and Japanese-American males in Hawaii (but not in Los Angeles) seemed notably high in this regard. Females generally have been found more equalitarian in attitude, and females in Japan (especially at high prestige universities and colleges) are strikingly so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of personal and social characteristics of men who volunteered for a special type of hazardous duty, wintering-over at scientific stations in Antarctica. Since 1957, the United States has maintained several year-round stations on the Antarctic continent to implement the Antarctic Research Program supported by the National Science Foundation and the U. S. Navy. Civilian scientists and technicians are directly engaged in research projects while Navy personnel provide necessary logistic support. Groups of Navy and scientific personnel live and work together in close association and interdependence at these stations for approximately a year. Men are selected for Antarctic assignments primarily on the basis of competence in an occupational specialty. Since the station must be a completely self-sustaining community, a wide variety of scientific, technical, and military occupations, such as glaciologist, ionospheric physicist, meteorologist, electronics technician, physician, mechanic, and cook, are represented.

Interest and familiarity, then, explain the selection of eight photographs as "American types" and the rejection of two. Where interest is reinforced by current debate (as in the case of the Negro and the businessman). selection is heavy. When the debate and consequently the information lessens (as in the case of the "social types") selection is less frequent. When there is no debate at all but general acceptance instead and ready familiarity (as with the Texan sheriff), the selection is very high. And finally, when the ready familiarity has been on the basis of personal acquaintance (as with the GI), the selection is not only high but comprehensive and many-sided appraisals result. It is an indication of the general interest of the British respondents in several aspects of American life that 95 per cent of them made selections of "American types." The tone and content of the accompanying voluntary remarks are an important part of the pattern of ideas and feelings that they have about Americans and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reasoning processes of an individual may often be modified by under- lying viewpoints which may or may not agree with the opinions he expresses overtly. These distortions of reasoning may be used as an index of the underlying opinions of respondents. The evidence for the validity of this procedure has been set forth in preceding articles published elsewhere; this study is an attempt to apply the method to determine how a particular group of students feel about certain Japanese characteristics. The four issues studied were assimilability of the Japanese into American society, eye inferiority of the Japanese, trustworthiness of the Japanese, and Japanese cruelty. Our study seems to warrant the following conclusions: 1. Our respondents show but a slight tendency to reject the statement that the Japanese are not assimilable into American society and, at the same time, manifest no confusion of thinking on this issue. 2. Our respondents overtly express a disbelief that the eyes of the Japanese are inferior to those of other races and show that they are not emotionally prejudiced about this issue. 3. The students who took this test show considerable distortion in their thinking about the untrustworthiness of the Japanese. Whereas in a control syllogism, where the issues were altogether unemotional, they showed considerable preference for a statement which was equivalent to the proposition that "None of the Japanese are trustworthy"; in a syllogism which openly expressed this opinion they tended to reject it in favor of the more tempered opinion that "Some of the Japanese are not trustworthy." 4. Our students tend to avoid a direct judgment about the cruelty of the Japanese. In a control syllogism they favored a conclusion which would be equivalent to saying that "80 per cent of the Japanese are cruel"; whereas in the syllogism which dealt directly with the issue of Japanese cruelty they swung toward the conclusion that "No logical conclusion can be drawn from the given statements." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies aggressive social attitudes, with special emphasis on the role of personal and family scores. Contemporary American psychology is so wholeheartedly genetic in orientation that no objection will probably be raised to the suggestion that social attitudes stem from childhood experiences. It has been suggested by different authors that the attitudes of the adult toward authority, toward existing institutions, and toward national symbols are significantly related to the emotional experiences of childhood. The article author believes that it is unfortunate that so many psychologists believe that only correlations of great magnitude are important. One must expect many factors besides parent-antagonism to determine the child's deviation from his elders on social questions. This article summarizes data collected over a period of several years, on the interaction of family patterns and aggressive social attitudes. The main instrument employed has been the inventory of social attitudes previously described.

A poll of attitudes toward the war and peace, conducted in a midwestern agricultural county, revealed generally high morale in terms of expectation of victory and willingness to make sacrifices, despite the expectation of many unfortunate post-war conditions. Considerable difference of opinion was expressed about such matters as clarity of our war aims and quality of news reports received. Underlying attitudes toward our allies seemed generally favorable, with certain reservations. Though it was believed that brutal atrocities have been committed by enemy soldiers, there was a decided lack of animosity toward the peoples of enemy countries. The respondents were not hopeful of a lasting peace after the war; however, three-quarters of them favored participation by the United States in some kind of world league of nations. Attitudes did not seem to be greatly influenced by occupation, political affiliation, education, sex, or age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes personality as a pattern of teleonomic trends. The approach to the study of personality which has been typical of most American investigations is the trait, or analytic, approach. In this method, some trait or variable of behavior is isolated, a scale to measure it is constructed, validated, and standardized, and then used to determine where any given individual stands in relation to a larger group in regard to that variable. Measurement of a trait ultimately consists in an observer making a judgment as to the amount of this quality of behavior discernible in the conduct of a given individual. The pattern of purposes, which may be judged as carried out in full or in part in a majority of an individual's behaviors, may be considered the unifying tendency, which gives that individual's personality the characteristic of uniqueness. Prediction of that individual's behavior in future unique situations may be made on the basis of a formulation of the behaviors which are described in terms of those purposes. The term teleonomic trend is here used in referring to a characteristic behavior of the sort just described, that is, a form of behavior which may be judged by an observer as embodying the execution of a given purpose.

The article focuses on emotional stability and political opinions as related to age and income of people living in the U.S. prior to 1929. It reports some of the effects of the depression on the attitudes of a wide assortment of people. The determination of the attitudes, opinions, and emotional stability of various classes of the U.S. population in relation to their incomes, age, and cultural background seem to be a major and significant problem in psychology. A questionnaire was prepared seeking three classes of information: to get some measure of emotional stability, to determine how hard the depression had hit the individual, and to determine their opinions and beliefs. An important time in determining the opinions of an individual and perhaps his emotional stability comes at that period when he grows into society. In his teens the child may chiefly reflect the opinions of his parents. In the past 50 years certain major social events have modified the course of history and institutions.

The article analyzes 28 Chinese personality-trait words by the provision of data about the applicability of three dimensions in Chinese society. Methodology used on the rating given by 60 sophomores at Beijing University on themselves and 30 hypothetical persons is presented. Few Social-Psychological constructs seem more informative about and dependent on culture and language than does implicit personality theory, represented by such dimensions as hard-soft, good/intellectual-bad/intellectual active-passive, good-bad, and good/social-bad/social. The present study provides preliminary data about the applicability of these dimensions in Chinese society. In spite of the sample limitation, the findings suggest that although their values and behaviors may vary broadly, people in China and the United States probably perceive personality traits in the same way. Determination of the universality of implicit personality theory requires more comparisons among cultures.

The article focuses on mythological ethnocentrism as a determinant of international attitudes (IA). Ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to use the attitudes, beliefs, and customs of one's own nation or culture as the bases for judging other nations or groups. People who are most ethnocentric are also more prone to believe their society's myths, adhere to perceived norms more rigidly, and expect others to do the same, have simpler cognitive structure, and are less tolerant of ambiguity. If the individual's own nation's history and values are misperceived and/or idealized, a mythological frame of reference is used in making judgments about other nations' behaviors. Such a process can be called mythological ethnocentrism. Two tests which consisted of 25 items each dealing with knowledge of American history (AH) and corresponding IA were constructed. Formulation of the corresponding items on the tests was guided by the hypothesis of mythological ethnocentrism. Subjects indicated their responses to the items on a five-point Likert scale from true to false on the AH test and from agree to disagree on the IA test.

The article cites a study which focuses on stereotyped attitudes toward the aged in West Germany and the United States. It has also been noted that the attitudes of old and young toward aging are interrelated and that cultural rejection results in self-rejection of the old, with its concomitants of personality disorganization and regression. Although respect for the elderly has been traditionally high in Germany, a steady decline in patriarchal sentiments beginning in the postwar years suggests that the actual relations between old and young in West Germany may be far more disharmonious and similar to those in the United States than has generally been acknowledged. Agreements and disagreements in the attitudes toward old people were assessed with a German translation of the Golde-Kogan Sentence Completion Procedure. This instrument, consisting of 20 incomplete sentences dealing with various aspects of old people's lives and the subjects personal experience with elderly persons, was administered to 67 older and 73 younger females of comparable intelligence and social background in three medium-sized West Germany cities.