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THE ROLE OF ATTITUDES IN COMPREHENSION
Author(s) -
FRIEDMANN S.
Publication year - 1958
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1958.tb00660.x
Subject(s) - comprehension , psychology , test (biology) , statement (logic) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , linguistics , paleontology , philosophy , biology
By means of an attitude test and expressed opinions, subjects were divided into pro‐, anti‐ and neutral‐groups for each of twenty‐four political statements. No significant differences in comprehension were found between the three groups, except in two cases where the groups who scored higher for comprehension also had superior intelligence and knowledge scores. A significant result was found for only one of the twenty‐four statements, namely, a negative correlation between liking and comprehension, and a comparable superiority in comprehension of the opposing group: this statement was found to be ambiguous in its expression of attitude. The findings of a control experiment, using comments instead of a comprehension test, supported the main conclusion that for unambiguous statements there was no relationship between the efficiency of comprehension and direction of attitude.