The effect of judges' attitudes on ratings of attitude statements. A theoretical analysis

Judgments of attitude statements with the method of equal-appearing intervals have been found to vary as a function of the judges' attitudes. In this paper explanations of the relationship between judges' attitudes and judgments of attitude statements in terms of models of psychophysical judgment are discussed. It is argued that psychophysical models such as adaptation-level theory, the range-frequency model, and the ‘rubber-band’ model and its derivations, cannot account satisfactorily for judges' performance of the attitude rating task in a great number of studies. The reason for this failure, it is argued, is that the stimulus series employed in the psychophysical judgment research on which these models are based typically varied only on the dimension being judged. The sets of statements judged in attitude rating studies, however, vary not only on the dimension of interest (favourability—Unfavourability) but also on a number of other dimensions. It is suggested that this incidental stimulus variation of attitude statements may account for the failure of psychophysical models to predict accurately the performance of judges in the attitude rating task. It is argued that if principles which could account for the effects of this incidental stimulus variation on attitude ratings could be incorporated into psychophysical models, the predictive qualities of these models could be improved considerably. One such model is discussed.     

Categorization,cognitive consistency and the concept of dimensional salience

Cognitive consistency theories predict changes in evaluation within an existing frame of reference. This frame of reference must be defined in terms of those dimensions or aspects of the situation that appear most salient to the individual concerned. The same siuation may appear balanced or unbalanced, depending on which dimensions are seen as salient. The tendency to maintain balance may therefore reveal itself in a tendency to see as salient those dimensions in terms of which a given situation will appear most balanced. This is consistent with evidence from the judgment of attitude statements, which suggests that individuals will regard as most salient those dimensions along which their own evaluations of a set of statements will be most congruent with the value connotations of the terms by which the judgment scale is labelled.     

Attitudinal effects of the use of evaluatively biased language

In an experiment to study the effects on attitudes of requiring subjects to use evaluatively biased language, 84 schoolchildren aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to measure their attitudes on the issue of adult authority over teenagers, before and after writing an essay on this issue in which they were either required to incorporate words from a list all of which implied a positive evaluation of a pro-authority position or a negative evaluation of an anti-authority position (pro-bias condition), or required to incorporate words where the implied evaluations were reversed (anti-bias condition), or were given no words to incorporate (control condition). Relative to controls, pro-bias subjects showed as a shift towards a more pro position and anti-bias subjects became more anti irrespective of their initial attitudes (pro-bias versus anti-bias comparison, p<.01). However, when tested 6 days later most of this effect had disappeared, particularly in the case of subjects whose initial attitudes were least pro. At this final session, subjects also rated attitude statements on the issue in terms of scales constructed from the pro-bias and anti-bias word lists. In accordance with previous research, the more pro subjects' attitudes, the more they showed greater polarization of judgement on the pro-bias than the anti-bias scales (p<.000l). It is concluded that a person's attitude may be related to the kind of evaluative language he will apply to an issue, and that when a person is induced to use language implying a particular evaluation of an issue, he may change his attitude, at least in the short term, so as to be more congruent with the language he has used.     

Judging risk behaviour and risk preference: The role of the evaluative connotation of risk terms

Two experiments investigate the impact of the evaluative connotation of risk terms on the judgment of risk behaviour and on risk preference. In the first experiment we focus on (1) the evaluation congruence of the risk terms with a general risk norm and (2) with subjects' individual risk preference, and its effects on the extremity of judgments of risk behaviour. In the second experiment we address (3) the effects of evaluative connotation of risk terms on risk preference. In the first experiment subjects were presented with four decision problems, each with a risky and a cautious decision option, and were required to judge options. Results showed that the judged discrepancy between the risky and cautious option was larger on scales which were evaluatively congruent with the general risk norm for that specific decision problem or with subjects' individual preference. More specificly, in decision problems for which there was considerable consensus about the risk-norm judgments were more extreme on scales which were congruent with the risk norm, in those problems lacking a clear-cut risk-norm judgments were more extreme on scales congruent with subjects' individual risk preference. In the second experiment we studied the reverse relation between the evaluative connotation of risk terms and risk preference. This experiment demonstrates that using evaluatively biased risk terms can affect risk preference. Using terms which imply a positive evaluation of risk-taking and a negative evaluation of risk avoidance led to increased risk preference, and vice versa. Results are discussed in the context of accentuation theory.     

When rigidity does not fail: Individualization and psychologization as resistances to the diffusion of minority innovations

Studied the impact of individualization and psychologization of minorities upon their influence. In Experiment I, 72 Swiss male and female 15-year-old students read a text on pollution prepared in a 2 × 2 ANOVA-design (one/ two sources, rigid/flexible style) and reported their impression of the content. As below, attitude was measured before and after reading. In Experiment II, 24 second-year Swiss psychology students judged the presumed author of an anti-militaristic tract by adjectives with either merely political or political and psychological connotations. Results indicate that the strong difference between flexible and rigid style appears with one source only, but that independent of the number of sources, a rigid style obtains a less positive image. Change of attitude in moderate subjects judging with political adjectives only vanished in those using psychological adjectives in addition. As a rigid minority only tacks influence when individualized and as psychologization constitutes an ideological functioning of resistance to social change, psychological research, by its current strategies, might be participating in such resistance.     

The hidden impact of conspiracy theories: perceived and actual influence of theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana

The authors examined the perceived and actual impact of exposure to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. One group of undergraduate students rated their agreement and their classmates' perceived agreement with several statements about Diana's death. A second group of students from the same undergraduate population read material containing popular conspiracy theories about Diana's death before rating their own and others' agreement with the same statements and perceived retrospective attitudes (i.e., what they thought their own and others' attitudes were before reading the material). Results revealed that whereas participants in the second group accurately estimated others' attitude changes, they underestimated the extent to which their own attitudes were influenced.     

SELF-PRESENTATIONS OF ATTITUDES FOLLOWING COMMITMENT TO PROATTITUDINAL BEHAVIOR

Attitude statements present a particular image of the respondent to onlookers and can be tactically used for self-presentational purposes. The present study investigated the relationship between variables relevant to self-presentation and attitude statements following proattitudinal actions. Under conditions of high or low decision freedom, female subjects committed themselves to argue for a proattitudinal issue. The experimenter described the issue as either low or high in importance, and subsequent attitudes toward the issue were measured in a way which allowed low (subjects did not sign their questionnaires and placed them in a collection box) or high (subjects signed their questionnaires and handed them to the experimenter) personal association with attitude statements. A triple interaction of the variables was found on subjects'statements of personal involvement with the issue. As suggested by a self-presentation approach, subjects expressed more involvement under no-choice/low-association/high-importance conditions than under choice/low-association/high-importance conditions. Subjects who were denied personal responsibility and close association with an important action apparently increased their involvement to gain responsibility. The findings failed to support self-perception predictions of more favorable attitudes under choice rather than no-choice conditions.     

Not worth the extra cost? Diluting the differentiation ability of highly rated products by altering the meaning of rating scale levels

Over the last decade, the use of rating scales has grown in popularity in various fields, including customer online reviews and energy labels. Rating scales convey important information on attributes of products or services that consumers evaluate in their purchase decisions. By applying multidimensional scaling, this paper reveals that the meaning of the levels of a rating scale can be altered by manipulating the labeling of the rating scale levels. The study reveals that consumers perceive product attributes as being more similar if the labels share similar or identical linguistic or visual characteristics. In addition, two choice‐based conjoint studies examine whether the way consumers make their choices among products can be influenced by changing the labeling of rating scale levels. The results show that a manipulation of the meaning of rating scale levels diminishes both the importance of the rating scale information and consumers' willingness to pay a premium for a rating upgrade. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EFFECTS OF MEMORY AIDS ON THE DYADIC CONVERSATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS WITH DEMENTIA

The effects of a prosthetic memory aid on the conversational content and social skills of dyads with dementia were evaluated. Six individuals with moderate to severe dementia served as either subject or partner in dyads during 5-min conversational probes conducted three times per week in daycare and nursing-home settings. During phases when a memory aid, consisting of personally relevant picture and sentence stimuli, was available, most subjects used their own aid to improve the quality of conversations by increasing the frequency of on-topic statements, diminishing nonproductive utterances, lengthening their conversational turn, and/or increasing the frequency of turns taken. Most partners demonstrated awareness of social discourse conventions by appropriately relinquishing conversational dominance, decreasing both content and nonproductive utterances, and increasing acknowledging or affirmative comments when subjects used memory aids. Naive judges' ratings of aided and unaided conversational samples on seven conversational dimensions reflected differences in perceptions of significant improvement as a function of the conversational discourse style of each dyad.     

Corporate Teamwork and Diversity Statements in College Recruitment Brochures: Effects on Attraction1

Organizations are increasingly emphasizing group work or teamwork as a source of competitive advantage in a diverse workforce. It has been suggested that such organizations must target their recruitment efforts at applicants who are both diverse and amenable to working in teams. Data were collected from 181 undergraduates at a large northeastern university who viewed a recruitment brochure of a fictitious firm in which statements about teamwork and diversity were manipulated. Results indicate that applicants' teamwork attitude moderated the relationship between teamwork statements and applicant attraction to the organization. Minority and gender status moderated the relationship between diversity statements and applicant attraction. These results provide evidence that organizations can target specific applicant characteristics with appropriate statements in recruitment brochures.     

Self‐Supervisor Agreement: The Influence of Feedback Seeking on the Relationship Between Self and Supervisor Ratings of Performance1

Self‐assessment research has continued to search for those factors that increase self‐other rating agreement. The current field study investigated the feedback‐seeking strategies (i. e., monitoring and inquiry) used by 125 employees to obtain performance information, as well as the relationship between feedback‐seeking strategy use and self‐supervisor performance‐rating agreement. Results indicate that the frequency of monitoring reported by employees significantly moderated the relationship between self and supervisor ratings of performance. Individuals who reported higher levels of feedback seeking through monitoring were more likely to have self‐assessments that were congruent with their supervisors' ratings of performance.     

Development in moral judgment as indicated by rejection of lower-stage statements

Previous failures of preference rating scales to identify developmental differences in moral judgment may have occurred because the focus was on acceptance of high-stage reasons rather than on consistent rejection of lower-stage reasons. Attention focused on seventh-, ninth-, and eleventh-grade students' (N = 178) rejection of the lower-stage statements that they presumably comprehend but have to varying degrees dropped from their spontaneous-production repertoire. Students rated the adequacy of the reasons presented in statements written to exemplify Kohlberg's stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Ratings of Stage 1, 2, 3, and 4 statements showed clear age discrimination (all p's < .001). As in previous preference studies, higher-stage items produced no significant age differences. Implications for evaluation of change studies were noted.     

The Case Study Method of Rehabilitating Drivers

Summary

This study was designed to examine the relationship between attitudes toward homosexuality and attitudes toward certain aspects of heterosexual sexuality and to personal sex guilt and sex stereotyping. One hundred twenty-six Canadian male students completed a series of specially devised attitude scales pertaining to these areas. On the basis of their responses to the anti-homosexual scale, subjects were divided into a prohomosexual (Pro-H) and antihomosexual (Anti-H) group.

Results showed that Anti-H respondents were more intolerant of a variety of heterosexual behaviors. Anti-H Ss reported more personal sex-guilt and higher level of repression of their own sexual impulses than did Pro-H subjects. The Anti-H group also demonstrated a greater stereotyping of the sexes by their sex-typing of a variety of personality characteristics, hobbies, and professions. These Ss were also more willing to label a man as homosexual when he exhibited what they thought of as a single feminine characteristic than were Pro-H subjects.

These findings provide supportive evidence for the theoretical formulations of Churchill (4) regarding antihomosexualism in a sex-negative environment. As the intercorrelations between the three principal attitude scales were only moderate, it appears that attitudes toward homosexuality are at least somewhat specific, not just part of a more general sexual attitude. Similarly, anti-homosexual attitudes correlate positively but moderately with general sexual conservatism and with personal sex guilt.

Discussion of these moderate correlations suggested the relevance of various sources of prejudice. The uncritical acceptance of culturally pervasive stereotypes could account for much measured antihomosexual feelings. It was also suggested that development of the culturally acceptable masculine identity is facilitated by the individual's desire to avoid the stigmatization of being “feminine;; which, in cultural terms, means also being “queer.”     

Social value orientations and negotiator outcomes

Social value orientations (SVOs) are known to influence individual behaviour in outcome interdependent settings. By extending these findings to negotiation, this research investigates the relationship between own and partners' SVOs, negotiator strategies and outcomes. Results showed that cooperators, competitors and individualists could be distinguished in terms of initial demands and concessions. Competitors made higher initial demands and larger concessions than individualists or cooperators, suggesting that their ability to maximize outcome differences rests on whether structural features are congruent with this goal. The principal finding of this research was the demonstration that own and partners' SVO interact to determine outcomes. Results showed that the three SVO groups differed in terms of context sensitivity: competitor outcomes were invariant across partners; individualists achieved poor outcomes in negotiations with cooperators and, reciprocally, cooperators attained high outcomes in negotiations with individualists. Additionally, individualist outcomes worsened in their last negotiation, while those of cooperators differed as a function of role and partner's SVO. These results suggest that although the information used by individualists and cooperators differs, for both groups the cognitive representation of negotiations is a further factor influencing their outcomes.     

Categorization,attitude and memory for the source of attitude statements

In a study of factors influencing recognition-memory for the sources of attitude statements, a final sample of 107 subjects, aged 15–16, first rated their agreement with 24 statements concerning drug-use, 12 of which were attributed to one, and 12 to another, fictitiously named newspaper. Later, the statements were re shown to subjects with half the names altered, and subjects had to indicate which names were correct (i.e., unaltered). Discrimination sensitivity was very significantly higher in a condition where the initial relationship between the sources and the statements was systematic, so that the 12 most pro-drug statements were attributed to one newspaper and the 12 most anti-drug statements to the other, than in two conditions where the initial relationship was random, in which discrimination was at chance level. In the first of these conditions, subjects were also more likely to claim that the attributed source was correct if they had previously agreed with the statement. overall, subjects were more accurate in discriminating correct and incorrect sources for statements to which they had previously given a more moderate, or a more negative response on the agreement scale.     

Interpersonal orientation and the accuracy of personality judgments

Are those who are more invested in developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships able to provide more accurate judgments of others' personality characteristics? Previous research has produced mixed findings. In the present study, a conceptual framework was presented and methods were used that overcome many of the problems encountered in past research on judgmental accuracy. On four occasions, 102 judges watched a 12‐min videotaped dyadic interaction and described the personality of a designated target person. Judges' personality characteristics were described by self, parents, and friends. Results revealed that psychological communion was positively associated with judges' accuracy in rating targets' personality characteristics. In addition, whereas women were more communal and provided more accurate judgments than men, the relationship between communion and accuracy held after controlling for the effect of gender. Finally, preliminary findings suggested that interpersonally oriented individuals may sometimes draw on information about themselves and about stereotypical others to facilitate accurate judgments of others.     

Social comparisons and quality of life among survivors of childhood cancer and their mothers

Abstract

Sixty-three survivors of childhood cancer (mean age 17 years), currently well and off-treatment, and their mothers were interviewed individually about their experiences and the impact of their illness on their lives. Survivors also completed four questionnaire measures of different aspects of quality of life (perceptions of illness experience, future worries, health problems and body image satisfaction), whereas mothers recorded their perceptions of their child's quality of life on the same four scales. These scales showed good internal consistency and convergent validity for both survivors and mothers. Mothers also completed a measure of their own quality of life (the SF-36). The interviews with both survivors and mothers were content-analysed for statements expressing social comparisons. These statements were coded according to whether the comparison implied a favourable, neutral or unfavourable evaluation of the individual survivor. Mothers who made a higher proportion of unfavourable comparisons reported worse adjustment for their child on all four scales and described their own quality of life more negatively. Among survivors, those who made a higher proportion of unfavourable comparisons gave significantly more negative self-ratings on one of the four scales. Correlations between survivors' and mothers' ratings on the four scales were positive, but comparatively low. This reinforces concerns about using parents as proxy judges of young people's quality of life, although the correlations were more satisfactory in the case of younger rather than older (>18.5 years) survivors. Mothers who rated their own quality of life as less satisfactory reported more problems for their child on all four scales, irrespective of how the survivors described themselves.     

The importance of the individual in the ‘causal’ relationship between attractiveness and self-esteem

This paper argues that many psychological explanations underlying health and social behaviour stress the importance of the relationship between attractiveness and self-esteem. The nature of this relationship is not well understood, yet can have important implications for the individual in areas of medical intervention which involve treatment on aesthetic grounds. A survey of psychosocial factors among 1018 children aged 11-12 years is reported. The study examined the association between perception of physical attractiveness and self-esteem in order to clarify the relationship between self-esteem and self versus others' perception of attractiveness. Self-ratings of attractiveness were linked to judges' ratings to determine whether subjects underrated, over-rated, or accurately perceived their own physical attractiveness. The results showed that although ratings of general facial attractiveness by others were associated with self-perceived attractiveness, in the specific area of dental health, attractiveness (as judged by others) was not. There were no significant relationships between ratings of attractiveness by others and self-esteem. Self-perception of attractiveness, however, was significantly associated with self-esteem. Further analyses showed that children who under-rated their own facial attractiveness had a lower mean score for self-esteem than over-raters or accurate perceivers (who did not differ significantly). In contrast, under-raters of dental attractiveness had a lower mean score for self-esteem than over-raters, but did not differ significantly from accurate perceivers. Over-raters of dental attractiveness had a higher mean score for self-esteem than accurate perceivers. These finding suggest that if an over-rater were to receive treatment on aesthetic grounds it is unlikely, given that they have high self-esteem already, that such intervention will have a profound psychological impact. These data indicate the importance of determining the way in which individuals evaluate their appearance compared to others, and may help to clarify previously equivocal findings concerning the relationship between self-esteem and attractiveness.     

Measuring Attitudes in Test-Alien Cultures: When Illiteracy and Unfamiliarity Do Not Matter

This study reports the construction of an attitude scale called a "Shah attitude scale." This scale overcomes the problems of scale construction and attitude measurement in test-alien cultures peculiar to Western scales. The major problems with the use of these scales are the non-correspondence of the samples used in scale construction and attitude measurement, difficulty of their use with the illiterate and rural samples, unfamiliarity of their verbal character and the response modality. Our scale is simple to construct and can be easily used with every section of society. Its conceptualization and development is based upon the agreed upon bipolar definition of attitude and the ideas derived from well-known attitude scales. The scale is based upon trait adjectives and can be used easily in cross-cultural attitudinal studies.     

Influences of lateral preference and personality on behaviour towards a manual sorting task

Differences in task behaviour between left- and right-handers and left- and right-eared individuals have been reported (e.g.  and ) with left-handers taking longer to begin a task and right-eared individuals having a more disinhibited approach. Personality measurements are also important when examining approach behaviour. Jackson (2008) reported that those with higher neuroticism levels and a right-ear preference react faster to tasks. The current study investigated the effects of lateral preference and personality on behaviour towards a manual sorting task. Eighty-five participants completed laterality and personality scales and a card-sorting task. Degree of hand preference was found to influence behaviour towards the task with strong left-handers taking longer to begin. Those with a left congruent lateral preference (left-hand, left-ear) took significantly longer to begin the task than those with a right congruent preference. Neither neuroticism nor extraversion influenced task approach. We concluded that hand preference, and more specifically a strong left-hand preference is a good predictor of a longer initiation time on a manual task. Ear preference on its own does not predict initiation time.