More historical dimensions of commonsense knowledge: Spiritual consolation for the depressed

Ss were given 15 propositions derived from the neoclassical canon of advice on spiritual consolation for the depressed and were asked either to rate the extent of their personal agreement with each and to predict the average ratings for the group, or to say whether they regarded each proposition as ‘true’ or ‘not true’ and to predict the percentage of the group that would choose ‘true’ for each proposition. The observed and mean predicted rank orders were compared within and between methods; all correlations were high, positive, and significant. The results suggest that people's higher-order ideas about other people's ideas include notions about the intensity of beliefs as well as about the proportion of believers. Contemporary developments of those propositions which a clear majority of the present Ss endorsed are discussed.