No abstract

It was hypothesized that internal Ss would agree more with ideologies which emphasize the importance of self-determination of behavior, whereas external Ss would agree more with ideologies which emphasize the importance of social determination of behavior. Internals scored significantly higher on the traditional American ideology scale, whereas externals scored significantly higher on the New Left scale and one assessing a political philosophy of conservatism. These significant results ( p < .02) for college students supported the hypothesis. The implications for perception and understanding social problems were discussed.

Generality of prejudice of real groups (ethnic and ideological) to fictitious groups was dramatically reduced to about chance level when college Ss were allowed the response alternative of neutrality, which was strongly their dominant response. When attitude scales had no neutral category, as in past research, then generality of prejudice-tolerance to nonexistent groups occurred. This is an artifact of the use of nonneutral scales. There were more significant correlations between judgments of the real groups when judged on the neutral point semantic differential scale than when measured on the nonneutral semantic differential.