Abstract
A study was performed to determine whether characteristics of recording responses on rating scales generalize across stimulus domains and if this could account for the apparent tendency to displace interpretations of attitude‐relevant communications either toward or away from one's own attitude. Two characteristics were investigated: the standard deviation of responses and their index of dispersion (an indication of the degree to which response categories are used with equal frequency). These characteristics were measured in three domains: judgements of general personality trait adjectives, own attitude toward Negroes, and the estimated favourableness of other persons' attitudes toward Negroes as inferred from statements attributed to them. Subjects whose ratings of trait adjectives had a low index of dispersion and a high standard deviation appeared to have more favourable attitudes toward Negroes, and also tended to interpret pro‐Negro and anti‐Negro statements as relatively more extreme. Further analyses supported the contention that the effects of own attitude on the interpretation of attitude relevant messages (cf. Manis, 1961) may be attributable to the generalization of response style characteristics across content domains and do not necessarily result from an attempt to reduce pressure to change one's own view by distorting the meaning of messages discrepant from this view.
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