Dogmatism, Persuasibility and Attitude Instability

It was hypothesized that data from the Research Dogmatism Scale would be significantly and positively correlated with results from a modified version of the Janis and Field test of general persuasibility, and that data from both of those tests would be significantly and positively correlated with “general attitude instability,” the tendency of attitudes to change over time in the absence of communications designed to change those attitudes. The three tests were administered to 37 undergraduate students at the University of Kansas. The coefficients of correlation were .40 between scores on dogmatism and general persuasibility and .30 between those measures and attitude instability, Thus the three major hypotheses were confirmed. The authors conclude that “dogmatism” and “attitude instability” are characteristics which tend to accompany the syndrome of “general persuasibility.” These findings are discussed in their relation to previous research and in their implications for certain theories of attitude and personality.