Are scores on conventional attitude scales confounded with other measures of attitude strength findings from the general social survey
Raden, D.
Psychological Reports 64(3 Part 2): 1247-1252
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0033-2941 DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1989.64.3c.1247Document Number: 301779
This research investigated the relations of the five strength-related attitude dimensions and scores on a conventional attitude scale that measured attitude toward the traditional female role. The respondents were 837 women who participated in the 1983 General Social Survey. The strength-related dimensions, which resembled attitude properties that have been used as moderates of the attitude behavior relationship, included attitude importance, adequacy of attitude-relevant information, attitude certainty, degree of concern with the attitude issue, and frequency of thinking about the attitude topic. An analysis of variance showed that for all of the strength-related properties except firmness, the mean attitude scale scores for the different levels of strength varied significantly when the dimensions were used as independent variables. Moreover, there were directional differences in which the mean scale were generally greater for the higher levels of strength than for the lower levels. These results contradict experimental findings in which similar attitude dimensions were not confounded with conventional attitude scores.