Measurement of Ethnic-Racial and Cultural Perceptions and Attitudes through Word Associations.
Abstract
Considerable progress has been made in the development and refinement of the innovative inferential technique for measuring group differences in attitudes and perceptions. The method has been validated as a measure of meanings and attitudes, producing results comparable to all criterion measures except the semantic differential. This exception led to the development of a new strategy for making the semantic differential more relevant through a systematic scale selection based on the use of word association data. In testing the method's capability to predict behavior from association-based attitudinal inferences, the results were inconclusive, although the other attitude measures used were no better predictors than the AGA measure. An important finding of this phase of research was that by supplementing the attitude data with other association-based information, the accuracy of behavioral predictions was increased. The development of a more effective strategy for predicting social behavior poses problems such as accounting for situational constraints. By producing relevant perceptual as well as attitudinal data, the AGA method has a distinct potential to make useful contributions in this area. The expansion of the work association approach through the use of pictorial stimuli represented another important development of the method's capabilities. It provided the opportunity to apply this indirect measurement technique to the evaluation of communication effects.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA038919
Entities
People
- Jean A. Bryson
- Lorand B. Szalay
Organizations
- American Institutes for Research