Attitude Extremity and Latitudes of Acceptance, Rejection and Indifference
Measures of attitude extremity and measures of latitudes of acceptance, rejection and indifference were administered to 87 Ss (male college students) in order to test social-judgment hypotheses about the relationships among those variables. Pearsonian correlations were computed between extremity scores and sizes of the latitudes. Part of the data provided limited support to social-judgment predictions, but other parts disconfirmed some of the predictions. Different relationships were obtained between extremity and latitudes with the two different measures of attitude extremity (a semantic-differential scale and a Thurstone-type scale) used in this investigation. Possible explanations for the results were discussed, and suggestions were made for further research to answer some of the questions raised.