University of Cambridge. Department of Social and Developmental Psychology
Abstract
This
paper
revisits
a
cognitive
debate
concerning
social
judgment
and
the
measurement
of
attitudes.
Whilst
use
of
the
Likert
scale
is
pervasive
in
social
research,
this
paper
demonstrates
that
this
method
fails
to
address
a
critical
psychological
operation
in
social
judgment,
that
of
interacting
with
an
alternative
proposal
from
the
perspective
of
another.
This
paper
reports
a
study
undertaken
with
students
at
the
University
of
Malta
(N=247)
concerning
the
issue
of
revision
of
the
student
stipend
system.
Student
attitudes
regarding
this
issue
were
highly
unfavourable
to
proposals
suggesting
the
curbing
of
stipends.
We
hypothesized
that
strongly
held
attitudes
as
well
as
high
ego-‐relatedness
would
be
associated
with
closed-‐mindedness,
in
terms
of
the
explicit
rejection
of
alternative
proposals.
Our
hypotheses
were
refuted
by
the
data.
The
findings
demonstrate
that
students
are
mostly
open-‐minded
about
alternative
proposals
and
open
to
dialogue.
The
study
shows
that
high
ego-‐relatedness
and
strongly
held
attitudes
do
not
short-‐circuit
cognition
into
closed-‐mindedness
and
that
in
spite
of
strongly
held
attitudes,
respondents
retained
ability
for
cognitive
complexity.peer-reviewe
