Sex as a status characteristic: An examination of sex differences in locus of control

The conceptualization of sex as a status characteristic has been recently advanced (Meeker & Weitzel-O'Neill, 1977) as an explanatory principle for the apparently inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between sex and role specialization (e.g., the task/expressive distinction). This study is concerned with the validity of sex-as-status hypothesis and its potential generality examined in the context of research on locus of control. It is argued that sex differences in this variable may represent a special case of a more general pattern of relationships between status differentiations and locus of control. Conceived as realistic responses to position in the social hierarchy, beliefs in internal control are expected of higher status persons, while an external orientation is anticipated for individuals of lower status. This proposition has been empirically tested in a sample of Israeli college students. The findings lend support to the hypothesis, showing that females' tendency to external orientation is reinforced if they come from lower-class families; correspondingly, males' a priori internal orientation is more sharply pronounced if they come from the higher social classes. The theoretical appeal of the sex-as-status hypothesis vis-à-vis some alternative perspectives is discussed.     

Disbelief in belief: On the cognitive status of supernatural beliefs

Religious people seem to believe things that range from the somewhat peculiar to the utterly bizarre. Or do they? According to a new paper by Neil Van Leeuwen, religious “credence” is nothing like mundane factual belief. It has, he claims, more in common with fictional imaginings. Religious folk do not really “believe”—in the ordinary sense of the word—what they profess to believe. Like fictional imaginings, but unlike factual beliefs, religious credences are activated only within specific settings. We argue that Van Leeuwen’s thesis contradicts a wealth of data on religiously motivated behavior. By and large, the faithful genuinely believe what they profess to believe. Although many religions openly embrace a sense of mystery, in general this does not prevent the attribution of beliefs to religious people. Many of the features of religious belief that Van Leeuwen alludes to, like invulnerability to refutation and incoherence, are characteristic of irrational beliefs in general and actually betray their being held as factual. We conclude with some remarks about the common failure of secular people to face the fact that some religious people really do believe wildly implausible things. Such incredulity, as evinced by Van Leeuwen and others, could be termed “disbelief in belief.”     

The locus of sex differences in spatial ability

College men and women judged whether pairs of stimuli were identical or mirror images. One stimulus of a pair was presented upright; the other was rotated 0°–150° from the vertical. The stimuli were either alphanumeric symbols or unfamiliar letter-like characters of the type found on the Primary Mental Abilities Spatial Relations Test. For each individual, the linear function relating response latency to degree of rotation was computed. The slope of this function was steeper for women than for men. Further, the distribution of slopes was more variable among women, with approximately 30% falling outside the range of distribution for men. Women and men were quite similar in the accuracy of their judgments, the intercepts of the latency functions, and the precision with which the linear function characterized the latency data. It is suggested that the sex difference in the slope of the rotation function may reflect differences in strategies of mental rotation.     

Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural

A common assumption is that belief in conspiracy theories and supernatural phenomena are grounded in illusory pattern perception. In the present research we systematically tested this assumption. Study 1 revealed that such irrational beliefs are related to perceiving patterns in randomly generated coin toss outcomes. In Study 2, pattern search instructions exerted an indirect effect on irrational beliefs through pattern perception. Study 3 revealed that perceiving patterns in chaotic but not in structured paintings predicted irrational beliefs. In Study 4, we found that agreement with texts supporting paranormal phenomena or conspiracy theories predicted pattern perception. In Study 5, we manipulated belief in a specific conspiracy theory. This manipulation influenced the extent to which people perceive patterns in world events, which in turn predicted unrelated irrational beliefs. We conclude that illusory pattern perception is a central cognitive mechanism accounting for conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs.     

Erosion of belief and disbelief: effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural

The authors investigated the effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural among 94 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes at a small, private U.S. university. They hypothesized that religiosity would predict differential beliefs in the supernatural versus the paranormal but that negative affect would attenuate these beliefs. In addition, the authors predicted that belief in the supernatural and negative affect would interact to predict belief in the paranormal. Overall, the results were consistent with predictions. The religious participants were skeptical of paranormal phenomena but were accepting of supernatural phenomena. In addition, increased reports of negative affect over the preceding year appeared to attenuate belief in the supernatural for the religious participants. By contrast, for the nonreligious participants, increased belief in both the supernatural and paranormal was predicted when reports of negative affect were high. Finally, the interaction of supernatural belief and negative affect significantly predicted belief in the paranormal.     

Birth order and locus of control revisited: sex of siblings as a moderating factor

Rotter's Locus of Control scale was administered to 64 first-born and 157 other undergraduate students, and data on the sex of participants' siblings were also obtained. The sex of participants' siblings was significantly correlated with locus of control among first-borns but not among other participants.     

Sex differences in adjustment correlates of locus of control dimensions

This study investigated the hypothesis that dimensions of locus of control are differentially predictive of adjustment criteria for males and females. Two samples of undergraduates completed the Reid-Ware Three-Factor Locus of Control Scale and either the Texas Social Behavior Inventory or the Zander and Thomas version of the Barron ego strength scale. For both males and females, internals reported greater self-esteem and ego strength. However, for males, the fatalism dimension was the strongest predictor for each adjustment correlate. The social system control dimension was not predictive for males in either case. For females, the social system control dimension was predictive for each adjustment correlate, although it was not consistently the strongest predictor. The results are consistent with research on sex differences in parental antecedents of locus of control. Methodological implications of the differential predictiveness of locus of control dimensions are also addressed.     

Perceived locus of control and satisfaction in same–sex friendships

Two studies examined perceptions of locus of control (LofC) and friendship satisfaction. Study 1 tested the accuracy of college students’ perceptions of a friend's LofC and their friendship satisfaction. Participants perceived their friends to be similar to themselves on LofC and satisfaction but these perceptions did not match the friends’ self–ratings. Instead, the perceptions reflected a belief in the similarity to the self—the Attraction–Similarity Hypothesis. Study 2 tested whether own and perceived friend's LofC predicted own satisfaction. The Internality Hypothesis indicates that an external LofC would predict dissatisfaction but an internal LofC would predict satisfaction. It was also predicted that these effects would be stronger for women's friendships than for men's friendships. For female, but not male, friendships, perceptions of the friend's external LofC predicted dissatisfaction.     

Competitiveness: relations with GPA, locus of control, sex, and athletic status

A sample of college students and college athletes completed measures of competitiveness and locus of control. In addition, self-reports of GPA and sex were provided. Negative correlations among scores on competitiveness, GPA, and scores on internal locus of control were significant. Also, there were sex and athletic status differences in competitiveness.     

Individual differences in aggressive responses to attack: Internal-external locus of control and field dependence-independence

Two experiments assessed the effect of individual differences on aggression. In both studies subjects were exposed to opponents in the competitive reaction time task who decreased the intensity of their attack from high to low, remained constantly moderate in their attack, or increased the intensity of their attack from low to high. In the first experiment Internal Locus of Control subjects consistently set high intensity shocks in response to high intensity attack and low shocks in response to mild attack. External subjects showed relatively minor variations in their aggressive responses to varying intensities of attack. In the second experiment field-independent subjects set more intense shocks than field-dependent subjects only in the Decreasing attack condition.     

Multidimensional locus of control and Machiavellianism in Italian and West German students: similarities and differences

In recent decades, the relationship between Machiavellianism and locus of control has received increasing attention in psychological literature. Presented below are the results of various studies conducted to determine correlations between these variables, complete with statistical information concerning gender-specific differences.     

The anticipated belief differences theory of prejudice: Analysis and evaluation

The main supporting evidence for Rokeach's theory of prejudice (the Anticipated Belief Differences Theory of Prejudice) comes from the strong belief effects obtained in a simple Race/Belief manipulation. Analysis shows that the theory is unfalsifiable with this paradigm and is therefore neither tested nor confirmed by the many studies purporting to do so. The Belief-undefined/Belief-partially-defined manipulation of Stein, Hardyck and Smith (1965) does test the theory. However, these authors' conclusion that favourable evidence was obtained is incorrect owing to the use of an inappropriate statistic. Although race effects can be incorporated within a theory of belief prejudice it is equally possible to incorporate belief effects within any theory of prejudice which is contingent on an initial categorization into in-group and out-group. An empirical distinction between Rokeach's theory and other theories of prejudice can be made using a Belief-undefined/Belief-partially-defined manipulation. Finally the theoretical adequacy of Rokeach's theory is discussed in terms of more general characteristics of prejudice.     

Race differences in self-perception and locus of control during adolescence and early adulthood: methodological implications.

Data from a longitudinal sample of 14,721 White (7,193 men, 7,528 women) and 5,197 Black (2,400 men, 2,797 women) American high school students tested first between ages 16 and 19 and then in two follow-ups 4 and 6 years later were examined to determine Black-White and male-female differences in self-esteem and causal orientations. On general self-esteem scores, Blacks rated themselves more positively than Whites. Blacks also rated themselves more positively on specific self-beliefs (e.g., social attractiveness), although the magnitude of differences in such cases was quite small. On control measures, Blacks perceived greater external control pertaining to both cultural events and personal efficacy, although they had slightly greater expectations about future academic success. Results concerning the general and personal self-efficacy of Blacks were somewhat inconsistent with earlier reports (Coleman et al., 1966; Osborne & LeGette, 1982). Women tended to show less self-efficacy than men, but there were no interactions of race and sex. Even in the presence of significant effects for race and sex, mean differences tended to be relatively small.     

Infant sex differences: Ecological effects

Mothers and their firstborn. year-old infants (30 girls, 30 boys) were observed during two counterbalanced situations. In the nonavailability situation, mothers were not to initiate interaction; during free play, mothers were free to interact. As in previous studies, sex differences in infant touching and proximity seeking appeared, dependent here upon the level of interaction, with girls higher on both measures. Boys and girls did not differ during free play. Sex differences in maternal behavior were rare in either situation. Moreover, the pattern of associations between maternal and infant behavior changed as the level of interaction changed. Maternal availability, manipulated by experimental instructions, should be considered as a factor in interpreting investigations of early sex differences.     

Ideological differences in attitude and belief similarity: distinguishing perception and reality

ABSTRACT

Attitude and belief similarity have long stood as topics of inquiry for social psychology. Recent research suggests that there might be meaningful differences across people in the extent to which they perceive and actually share others’ attitudes and beliefs. I outline research examining the relationship between political ideology and the perception and reality of attitude similarity. Specifically, I review research documenting that (a) conservatives perceive greater ingroup similarity than do liberals, (b) conservatives overestimate and liberals underestimate ingroup similarity, (c) liberals and conservatives both underestimate similarity to outgroup members, and (d) liberals possess more actual ingroup similarity than do conservatives on a national level. Collectively, this review contributes to understanding how political ideology relates to (perceived) attitude similarity.