AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SOME FACTORS INFLUENCING THE SOCIAL ATTITUDES OF COLLEGE STUDENTS.

The article focuses on an experimental study of some factors influencing the social attitudes of college students. The experiment was undertaken with the purpose of determining to what extent a semester's training in certain courses at the University of North Dakota has made measurable changes in the avowed attitudes of the students. For this purpose, the attitude toward the treatment of criminals was the one selected for study. Results indicate that the regular college courses are bringing about measurable changes in the student's avowed attitudes on social questions. As would be expected, the change is greater in those courses more closely related to the variable under investigation. In scoring the papers the author noticed that many students checked statements which seemed to be quite contradictory in their imports and which differed widely in their scale values. Individual differences in this respect were rather great. This raised the question as to whether or not any concomitants of this consistency or lack of it could be found.