Psychometric Properties of the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale in Black and White South African Students

Recently Taylor and Boeyens (1991) showed that the South African Personality Questionnaire has inadequate internal consistency and factorial validity for use in the black population. This paper reports a study supporting their conclusion that scales developed with data from a white sample do not hold together psychometrically or conceptually when used with a black sample. In a sample of white students, Altemeyer's Right Wing Authoritarianism scale, initially developed in Canada, had an acceptable alpha of 0.83, but there was an unacceptable alpha of 0.43 in a black student sample. Item and factor analysis showed that for the black sample there was little structure and that the scale was effectively a set of heterogenous items. This paper presents a detailed discussion of the item and factor analyses and shows how certain items have different connotations for whites and blacks as a result of their different political and cultural histories. Although cultural differences in conservatism can be observed by looking at individual items, a comparison between black and white individuals on the higher order construct of Authoritarianism cannot be made. It is concluded that basic conceptual work based on the phenomenology of the concept being measured needs to precede the psychometric development of scales for use in the black community.     

The natural history of cigarette smoking: predicting young-adult smoking outcomes from adolescent smoking patterns

Assessed the magnitude of risk that adolescent cigarette smoking carries for adult smoking. Using a longitudinal, prospective design, results indicate that even infrequent experimentation in adolescence significantly raises the risk for adult smoking and that regular (at least monthly) adolescent smoking raises the risk for adult smoking by a factor of 16 compared to nonsmoking adolescents. Relative risk was also increased by an early onset of smoking and by a stable, uninterrupted course from experimentation to regular smoking. Relative risk did not significantly vary by age or sex. The continuity of smoking behavior between adolescence and adulthood supports the importance of primary prevention programs directed at adolescent populations.     

The relationship of sex role identity and social and politicalattitudes

A study is reported of the relationship between conscious social role preferences, unconscious sexual identifications, and attitudes toward five categories of social and political issues. Based on factor scores of inventory items, the categories include political liberalism, birth control, sex role morality, racial discrimination, and the achievement ethic The population studied consisted of men and women from communities designated working class, middle class, and upper class Controlling for the effects of age, sex, marital status, occupation, education, and political party preference, results indicate statistically significant associations between conscious and unconscious masculinity and femininity and attitudes toward all five categories of issues The patterns of associations, however, are not always consistent Discussion includes a consideration of sex role identity as a value and the implication of sex role differentiation for the integration of personality as well as social institutions     

Haptic identification of letters using the left or right hand

The present study investigated the effects of the use of the right and left hands on haptic identification of letters of the alphabet. Each of the 64 right-handed subjects was given three series of randomly ordered presentations of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The subjects were asked to feel each letter and name correctly each letter as quickly but as accurately as possible. Analysis showed faster identification by those subjects using their left hands on Series 1 with no hand-differences appearing on Series 2 and 3. Significant over-all improvement in identification time occurred with practice. The results were interpreted in terms of a novelty hypothesis of right-hemisphere function and an explanation of perceptual learning of letter identification.     

Exploratory study of black psychological health

Three groups of black men and women (primarily student groups) participated in this exploratory study which was designed to help participants define psychological health or wellbeing for themselves. Spirituality and religion were cited as being primary components of psychological health for all groups. However, the results are only suggestive given the small number of subjects. Finally, I discuss a distinction between spirituality and religion, developmental implications, and the role of oppression in defining black psychological health.     

The family relations of female juvenile delinquents

This study evaluated the assumption that the family relations of female delinquents are more dysfunctional than those of male delinquents. In a 2 × 2 (gender by delinquency status) design, 32 intact families were matched on demographic variables, and the male and female delinquents were matched on arrest data. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents were administered a selfreport personality inventory and were observed during a family interaction task. Consistent with the extant literature, families of delinquents had low rates of facultative information exchange and delinquent adolescents were more dominant toward their mothers than were well-adjusted adolescents. It was also observed that fathers of delinquents were more dominant toward their wives than were fathers of well-adjusted adolescents. In regard to the primary purpose of the study, it was observed that mother-adolescent dyads and parents in families of female delinquents had higher rates of conflict than their counterparts in families of male delinquents. In addition, the fathers of female delinquents were more neurotic than the fathers of male delinquents. These findings provide some support for the view that the families of female deliquents are especially dysfunctional.This research was supported by funding to the Department of Psychology at Memphis State University granted through the Centers of Excellence Program of the State of Tennessee. We gwratefully appreciate the cooperation of Judge Kenneth Turner of Memphis Juvenile Court, and of George Relyea, who has provided statistical consultation over the years.     

Contextual Effects in Judgments of Crimes,Criminals, and the Purposes of Sentencing1

Content analyses of crime coverage in the news media (e.g., Graber, 1980) consistently demonstrate the overrepresentation of crimes of violence. It was hypothesized that in addition to direct effects upon members of the public (e.g., leading people to overestimate the number of violent crimes) this would also have several indirect effects. Reading about crimes of high seriousness might lead the public to (a) view other offenses more seriously, (b) regard other offenders more negatively, (c) punish other offenders more severely, and (d) emphasize the importance of retribution as a sentencing goal. Two experiments were conducted, using 90 members of the general public as subjects, to test these hypotheses. In Experiment I, subjects first read a news story about a crime that was of high, medium, or low seriousness. Later they rated an unrelated offender and offense more negatively, and were more punitive in their sentences, if the earlier offense had been very serious. There was equivocal support for the hypothesis that changes in punitiveness are caused by subjects shifting to a punishment-oriented sentencing strategy. Rather, it would appear that harsher penalties resulted from changes in perceptions of offense seriousness. These findings are discussed, as are future research directions.     

Eliminating subjective biases in judging the loudness of a 1-kHz tone

It is possible to eliminate most of the known subjective biases that affect judgments of sensory magnitude using numbers. Experiments are described which do this, and which also investigate some of the biases. The least biased estimate for doubling the loudness of a 1-kHz tone is found to be about 11.5 dB. This value is still slightly affected by the logarithmic bias, although the bias could be eliminated. It is also affected by the stimulus equalizing bias, produced by the inequality between the finite range of loudnesses to which the ears are sensitive and the infinite range of numbers to which the loudnesses are matched. This last bias cannot be eliminated completely in direct magnitude estimation.     

Presentation modality and proactive interference in short-term retention using a mixed-morality distractor task

Two experiments investigated the release from PI following a shift in mode of presentation of the study words. In each experiment, the interpolated task required processing of both auditory (A) and visual (V) information. The results were the same with mixed lists (Experiment I) and with independent groups (Experiment II): A release from PI was obtained following an A to V shift but not following a V to A shift. It was concluded that the mixed-modality filler task has functional characteristics very similar to those of an A filler and that the filler task influences the memory code for study items.