Negative Assertion Research Articles

The place of values in social policy

Let me start this article on the valuation basis of social policy by a negative assertion contradicting the title. To stress the subjectivity of the valuation process, I deliberately use the word ‘valuations’ and avoid the term ‘values’ that is so popular in all social science – except in the combination ‘value-premises’ when certain valuations have been defined and made explicit for use in research.

Source and concept evaluation as determinants of inferred assertions

Within the context of congruity theory, the following hypotheses were tested: (l)When both source and concept (where concept is another person) are evaluated with a similar sign, a positive assertion will be assumed; otherwise, a negative assertion will be assumed. (2) What source is assumed to assert about concept should not differ from what concept is assumed to assert about source. Sixty-four Ss were given a list of historical figures and asked to choose what they thought each would say about some of the others from a list of assertions that ranged from definitely positive to definitely negative. The results supported Hypothesis 1. While Hypothesis 2 was not supported, there was a systematic effect, whereby the less positively evaluated figure in each pair was inferred to be more charitable in his assertions than vice versa.