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Previous investigations have demonstrated a relationship between endorsement of right-wing authoritarian (RWA) ideology and attitudes toward social and societal issues (e.g., abortion, drug use, affirmative action, and homosexuality). By contrast, the present studies examined the relationship between RWA and beliefs about matters of fact bearing on such issues (e.g., estimates of the prevalence of third trimester abortions, AIDS, concealed weapons). Studies 1 and 2 supported the propositions that high-RWA and low-RWA participants would show differences in their informational beliefs about sociopolitical matters consistent with differences in their respective ideologies and consistent with their putative differential cynicism about human nature. Study 3 demonstrated that the relationship between RWA and informational beliefs is amplified by the heightened salience of attitudes toward the targets of those beliefs. Language: en

This article describes the development of the Judgmental Self-Doubt Scale (JSDS), an individual difference measure of generalized mistrust of one’s judgment. Study 1 undertook the construction of the scale and demonstrated its high internal consistency. Studies 2 and 3 showed that greater judgmental self-doubt was associated, in anticipated ways, with a wide variety of personal dispositions. In Study 4, judgmental self-doubt was consistently associated with confidence in specific judgments concerning moral dilemmas, risk assessment, controversial societal issues, and societal parameters. In Study 5, the differential confidence of high and low self-doubters was greater following a task that required a difficult decision than it was following one that required an easy decision. The authors discuss ways in which doubt about one’s judgment, as assessed by the JSDS, is implicated in judgment-related behaviors and, more generally, in personality functioning.

Previous studies of the tendency to describe one's own personality or the personality of another in a differentiated, nuanced way have assessed differentiation in terms of number of ascribed traits. Findings have been inconsistent and conclusions compromised by failure to consider a key component of differentiation—the relationships between attributed characteristics. In the two studies reported in this article, the magnitude of the correlations between personality scale descriptions of a target was taken as an inverse indicator of differentiation. In both Study 1, which employed scales from the Personality Research Form (Jackson, 1974), and Study 2, which employed scales from the NEO PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992), participants showed greater differentiation in descriptions of themselves than of others and greater differentiation in descriptions of liked than of disliked persons. Participants also revealed a tendency to describe familiar persons in a less differentiated way than persons whom they knew less well. This pattern of findings is well-accommodated by Berscheid et al.'s (1976) ‘outcome dependency’ formulation which proposes that the more vulnerable our welfare to another person's influence, the greater our motivation to construe that person's behavior in dispositional terms.

Meehl and Rosen (1955) observed that their colleagues tended to equate the sensitivity of a sign (its probability given a diagnostic category) with its predictive accuracy (the probability of the diagnostic category given the sign). Such equating of inverse probabilities implies ignoring base rates. Later, many researchers demonstrated such neglect in a number of experimental contexts involving hypothetical judgments; others have found some use of base rates—but only when base rates were supplied by the experimenter, in which case even irrelevant base rates influenced judgment. The present study tested for equating conditional probabilities in a context similar to the contexts involved in the initial observations—that is, subjects strove for accuracy rather than attempted to make good judgments about hypothetical problems, and the base rates were generated by the subjects themselves. Neglect of base rates was revealed by within-individual comparisons showing subjects equated inverse probabilities without equating the corresponding unconditional ones.

The present study investigated the relationship between endorsement of the Protestant Ethic and self-characterizations reflected in personality test scores and self-ratings. As anticipated, the stronger the endorsement of Protestant Ethic ideology, the greater the tendency to describe oneself as having dispositions that are highly valued by that ideology. Endorsement was positively related to scores on Jackson's Personality Research Form (PRF) [Personality Research Form Manual (2nd edn), 1974] for Achievement, Endurance, and Order, and negatively related to scores for Impulsivity and Autonomy. Strength of Protestant Ethic endorsement was also positively related to the tendency to rate oneself as high in willpower and self-discipline, and as low in anxiety in comparison with ‘other college students’. A negative correlation between endorsement and scores on the Infrequency scale of the PRF suggests that persons who avow the Protestant Ethic may indeed be predisposed to act in accordance with its prescriptions.

Mirels (1976) demonstrated that derivations from Implicit Personality Theory were compromised by marked absolute discrepancies between subjects’ estimates of the coendorsement of personality items and the empirical relations between the items. Arguments presented by Jackson, Chan, and Strieker (1979) in a recent critique of this demonstration were shown to be based on an arbitrary and severely restrictive view of implicit theory. Logical and empirical considerations were brought to bear in the present paper to indicate that (a) empirical conditional probabilities of test item coendorsement are an appropriate comparison standard for estimates of those probabilities, (b) large absolute discrepancies between estimated and empirical coendorsement must be regarded as seriously impugning the accuracy of IPT, and (c) exclusive reliance on the correlational correspondence between estimated and empirical coendorsement results in an overly sanguine view of the accuracy of IPT. Moreover, it was shown that subjects fail to discriminate between highly asymmetrical conditional probabilities, a finding directly at variance with the assertion that the presumably veridical postulates of implicit theory are inductively extracted from experience. Also discussed were the relation between IPT and everyday social judgments, and the influence of IPT on behavioral ratings.

Tzeng and Tzeng's (1982) assertion that the results from two indices of estimated item coendorsement should not have been combined in Mirels' (1976) demonstration of inferential illusions is shown to be based on erroneous suppositions. Evidence for the equivalence of the two formats makes it clear that the separate presentation of data for each index would have yielded results and led to conclusions virtually identical to those for the combined data. The objection by Tzeng and Tzeng to Mirels' use of empirical conditional probabilities as a criterion against which to assess the veridicality of Implicit Personality Theory is also shown to be without empirical foundation. In the light of available findings, the existence of striking inaccuracies in the culturally prevalent Implicit Personality Theory seems well established.

Generalized self-enhancing and self-protective attributional dispositions were investigated by having subjects indicate, in terms of percentage allocations, the extent to which "typical outcomes" in a person's life are determined by (a) the person's abilities, judgments, and actions and (b) factors beyond the person's control. In Study 1, respondents made such allocations with respect to either positive or negative outcomes in their own lives or in the lives of others. Sharp sex differences were evident in the obtained attributional patterns, with males revealing self-serving and females self-deprecating inclinations. Study 2 replicated the procedure of Study 1, with the major exception that the typical outcomes were designated as either "academic" or "social." Evidence for self-serving bias was obtained for both males and females, becoming most clearly apparent where the outcome domain was associated with high sex-related involvement (male-academic; female-social).

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that the relationship between the intimacy of self-disclosure and liking for the self-disclosing person is mediated in part by the perceived scarcity of the revelations. Within a factorial design, subjects expecting to hear a same-sex partner disclose information which was low, medium, or high in intimacy, were either given no information about the scarcity of the disclosures or were led to believe that the partner would ordinarily reveal such information to a great many people or to very few people. Although both males and females gave clear evidence of disclosure reciprocity, males' liking for their partners failed to be influenced by either the intimacy or scarcity of the expected revelations. For females, when no scarcity information was provided, increased information intimacy produced greater liking. As anticipated, when scarcity was held constant at either a high or low level, the effects of intimacy on attraction were attenuated and nonsignificant. The findings are discussed in terms of a revised commodity theory formulation.

Seventy-two scientists (psychologists, biologists, and physicists) from a large US midwestern state university completed a questionnaire designed to assess understanding of the principles of formal logic believed by philosophers of science to be essential to theory and hypothesis testing. The questionnaire, in a multiple-choice format, required solutions to problems presented in either abstract (symbolic) or concrete (specific example) terms. Across academic disciplines the participants' performance reflected substantial deficits in the appreciation of straightforward logical propositions. For example, nearly half of the scientists failed to recognize the logical validity of modus tollens, an inferential rule of propositional logic which, from a strictly normative standpoint, has been depicted as the only form of valid conclusive inference in theory and hypothesis testing. The pivotal role of formal logic in philosophical analyses of scientific inference is questioned on empirical grounds.

A matched subjects design was employed to assess the effectiveness of an experimental program for the reduction of delinquent behavior in adolescent boys on probation. Youngsters in the experimental group (N= 19) were invited to participate in a series of small group sessions designed on the basis of principles drawn from the theory and research of social psychology. Control group delinquents (N= 19) were not informed of this project and continued their previous association with the probation office. The group experiences arranged for the experimental participants encouraged free and open discussion of their previous delinquent activities, future behavioral intentions, personal values, and life goals. It was found that participants developed high attraction toward the group and involvement in its activities. Frequency of subsequent delinquent behavior was found to be significantly reduced for experimental group participants as compared with their matched controls. In a followup interview 9 months after the last group meeting, it was found that experimental group members showed significantly more internal responses on a modified version of the Rotter I-E scale than did the control subjects.

The present study used a factor analytic procedure for identifying basic dimensions of elementary school student teacher concerns. A hierarchical factor analysis was applied to the intercorrelations among 122 situationspecific items rated by students completing their teaching practicum in Columbus, Ohio elementary schools. Results indicated the presence of a major factor, which accounted for over one-quarter of the variance. This factor, termed “Concern with Being an Effective Teacher,” reflects the teacher’s concern with generating a classroom environment conducive to effective learning and social growth. Seven other factors, together accounting for an additional 20 percent of the variance, were also identified and characterized. It is suggested that further studies investigate the utility of employing scores on such factors to identify successful teachers.

It was suggested that fluency, defined as number of responses, may misleadingly influence both high Intercorrelations sometimes reported among measures of creativity and low correlations sometimes reported between measures of creativity and intelligence. Subjects were 93 Saturday art school students between the ages of 9 and 15 years. Intercorrelations among five “creativity” scores derived from a slightly modified version of Torrance's Figure Completion Test and between these scores and Henmon-Nelson Intelligence were compared using both raw creativity scores and creativity scores corrected for the effect of fluency. Uncorrected creativity scores intercorrelated high among themselves (mean r= .45) and low with intelligence (mean r= .09), while corrected creativity scores showed low intercorrelations among themselves (mean r= .08) and with intelligence (mean r= .13). These findings are interpreted as confirming the influence of fluency upon high intercorrelations among so-called measures of creativity and as failing to support the suggestion that fluency may also influence low correlations among creativity and intelligence measures.

A self-description essay procedure was employed to ascertain the degree to which self-disclosing behavior would be predicted by scores on the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and by scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS). Data from 56 college women revealed no relationship whatever between Questionnaire scores and judges' ratings of self-disclosure; a significant negative relationship was obtained between SDS scores and the self-disclosure ratings. Judges' liking for the respondent and respondent verbal fluency were found to be substantially associated with the ratings of self-disclosure. Some implications of the present results for the concept and assessment of self-disclosure are discussed. In his widely known book, The Transparent Self, Jourard (1964) called attention to selfdisclosing behavior as an important factor in personal growth and interpersonal relationships. For Jourard, meaningful self-disclosure consists of "my communication of my private world to you in language that you clearly understand [p. 5]." Such communication is seen as particularly vital in the sense that "no man can come to know himself except as an outcome of disclosing himself to another person [p. 5]." This view is embodied in the widely held psychotherapeutic premise that a patient's authentic self-revelations are accompanied by an increasing awareness of submerged thoughts and feelings. In order to assess the degree to which an individual typically makes himself known to others, Jourard and Lasakow (1958) developed a Self-Disclosure Questionnaire which requires the respondent to estimate, by means of scalar ratings, the extent to which he usually discloses his thoughts and feelings about various topics (e.g., personality, money, attitudes) to various persons (e.g., mother, father, friend). As might be expected, amount of reported selfdisclosure has been found to vary with the ego-relevance of subject matter, the relationship between the respondent and the person to whom he discloses, and respondent charac