Attitude Judgments Research Articles

Discussion effects on racial attitudes.

We predicted that discussion would enhance dominant group values, leading to increased polarization between homogeneously composed groups of high-, medium-, and low-prejudice high school subjects. In an experimental condition, group members made individual attitude judgments, discussed them, and remade judgments. Control groups discussed irrelevant materials before responding again to the attitude items. As predicted, discussion of the racial attitude items with others having similar attitudes significantly increased the gap between high- and low-prejudice groups.

Internal states or external stimuli: Observers' attitude judgments and the dissonance-theory-self-persuasion controversy

Bem (1965, 1967a) has proposed a self-judgment model of attitude change in an attempt to account for a variety of hypotheses derived from dissonance theory. One derivation from Bem's model is that observer-subjects should be able to discriminate the circumstances controlling the behavior of involved subjects and to estimate accurately the attitudes of involved subjects at the end of the experimental procedure. This derivation has been supported in serveral “interpersonal replications” conducted by Bem. It was hypothesized that these results were obtained because Bem's descriptions of the experimental procedures allowed observer-subjects to perceive systematic differences between conditions in initial attitudes of involved subjects. A series of experiments was performed in an attempt to replicate Bem's results and then to show that observer-subjects cannot accurately predict the results of experiments when perceptions of initial attitudes of the involved subjects are controlled. The results of these experiments indicated that attribution of differential initial attitudes had produced the earlier results and that observer-subjects cannot predict the outcomes of attitude-change experiments when perceptions of initial attitudes are controlled by design.

Change in Society and in the Professions: Issues in the Emergence of Professional Social Work

In order to understand a new profession, one must wonder why it became necessary and how it developed. Generally, we assume that the emergence of a new profession is demanded by three conditions: a change in the social system, which brings with it new needs; a change in attitude, which expresses dissatisfaction with the current situation; and the development of new knowledge and insight. These points are illustrated in the early writings of Pestalozzi and Freud. Their applicability to the field of social work will be considered in two different periods: the 1920's and the 19S0's. This discussion is focused on the following three dilemmas: (1) lay attitude versus professional judgment, (2) artistic insight versus scientific knowledge, and (3) general welfare orientation versus specialized agency orientation.

Own Attitude and Thurstone Scale Judgments

Various explanations have been given of the relationships between S's own attitude and the category judgments he makes when constructing a Thurstone attitude scale. This study shows that variables other than own attitude are relevant, in particular, S's level of information about the issue. The number of ‘anchors’ he uses for his judgments and the logical form of the opinion statements should also be considered.