Verificationism and dogmatism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

A cognitive approach to dogmatism: An investigation into the relationship of verbal working memory and dogmatism

This study investigated the relationship of working memory to open and closed belief systems. Two hundred college students completed a working memory span test to measure verbal working memory, and Rokeach’s Dogmatism Scale (1956). Regression analysis was undertaken to determine the contribution of verbal working memory to dogmatism. A negative correlation was found between dogmatism scores and working memory scores (p = .002) confirming the hypothesis that those participants who display a larger working memory capacity would show lower levels of dogmatic beliefs than participants displaying a smaller working memory capacity. Error analysis was employed to determine the significance of inhibition processes; indicating that capacity limits in verbal working memory, and not processing deficits, were primarily responsible for poor working memory scores. Dogmatism was not found to be related to gender, age, ethnicity, religious affiliation, academic major, or level of education.     

Ethnic differences in subclinical paranoia: an expansion of norms of the paranoia scale

The Paranoia Scale (PS) was designed to assess subclinical paranoid ideation (A. Fenigstein & P. A. Vanable, 1992). Despite its established validity, the PS has several problems that need to be addressed. There are no normative data on ethnic minority groups such as African Americans, making it difficult to interpret this group's performance on the PS. Data from the present research revealed that African Americans scored higher on the PS than non-Hispanic Whites. However, interpretation of these findings should be tempered as they may reflect other contextual factors such as discrimination and the impact of racism. Implications for using the PS with African Americans and possible explanations for the observed results were discussed.     

Client dogmatism and perceived counselor attitudes

This study examined the relationship between client dogmatism and perceptions of the counselor's empathy, level of regard, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. Counselor dogmatism was held constant. It was hypothesized that the client's dogmatism would be negatively related to his perceptions of these four counselor attitudes. The analysis revealed small but significant negative correlations between client dogmatism and three of the four counselor-expressed attitudes (congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard).     

Some psychometric properties of the revised wechsler memory scale

Intercorrelations among and reliabilities of the subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale (R.P.A.H. version) are reported as well as the factor structure of the Scale and the efficiency of the Scale in identifying subjects with putative memory disorder.