COGNITIVE CONSISTENCY AND CLASS IDENTIFICATION: STUDY OF SOCIAL PERCEPTION

Medical Uaiversify of South Carolina Summary.-Using the Semantic Differential, 46 undergraduates evaluated as theoretically expected 12 social-psychological concepts as they themselves felt about each concept and as they thought hypothesized members of four social-class categories would evaluate them. The evaluation scores of the generally working-class Ss were much more similar to those projected onto the middle and upper classes than those attributed to the lower and working classes. Cognitive consistency and reference groups-two of the most basic social-psychological concepts-were used to interpret data relating to the perception of and identification with social classes as differential bearers of attitudes toward selected social phenomena (cf. Kohn, 1969). In this context, the American society traditionally is alternately considered both relatively highly sensitized to class differences (cf. Lasswell, 1965) and also relatively unaware of or unwilling to admit to the existence of a class hierarchy (cf. Riessman, 1968). The former assessment leads to the expectation that individuals will markedly distinguish class levels relative to the perceived attitudes of others toward various social-psychological objects of affect. The latter assessment-that classes are either an unrecognized or unacknowledged realiry-leads to the opposite prediction that attitudes projected onto others will not be seen as serving boundary-defining functions scrving to distinguish one class category from another. However, reading the class literature inclines the present authors much more toward the first rather than the second view. Three hypotheses are suggested: (1) that a population sample's own attitudes toward a series of concepts-objects and those projected onto others will form a cognitively consistent pattern such that knowing how one concept-object has been evaluated will permit reasonably accurate prediction of how other concepts-objecs will be rated; (2) that the individuals will differentially attribute to social class categories theoretically expected and consistent patterns of attitudes toward salient objects of affect; and (3) that the population sample's own attitudes toward the evaluated concepts-objects will be more similar to the attitudes they perceive members of their own or higher classes having than those projected onto hypothesized members of a class or classes lower than their own. Ss were 46 white undergraduates (13 male, 33 female; A1 agc = 19 yr.) enrolled in 3 psychology course at the College of Charleston. Using the Scmantic Differential (cf. Osgood, et al., 1960), 12 concepts-hosen for their presumed sensitivity to class-specific differences in attitude expression-were evaluated with five 7-point bipolar scales. The concepts, in the order in which they were presented to Ss for rating, were PEOPLE YOU LIU, BLACK POWER, ABORTION, HARD HATS, EDMUND MUSKIE. STRANGERS, WOMEN'S LIBERATION, SPIRO AGNEW, THE OCCULT, HOMOSEXUALS, POLICE, and YOURSELF. The five evaluative scales used were reactionary-progressive, impotent-potent, safe-dangerous, dirty-clean, and moral-immoral. The scores for each concept could range from an "unfavorable" low of 5 to a "favorable" high of 35, with the neutral (median) score being 20. Ss were instructed to evaluate the 12 concepts in two ways: first, as they themselves felt about the concepts, and second, as they thought the "average" lower, working,