NCJ Number
90450
Date Published
1980
Length
28 pages
Annotation
The studies reported examine changes in conservative attitudes (dislike for and resistance to novelty and change) in British correctional officers, police officers, and social workers in the course of their training.
Abstract
The studies of the three occupational groups were conducted independently, but all of the studies used the Wilson Patterson Attitude Inventory to measure subjects' attitudes before and after occupational training. By testing subjects' attitudes toward familiar and controversial issues, tendencies toward conservative or liberal postures can be determined. The recruits to all three occupations showed a significant increase in liberalism during the course of training. The results generally cannot be explained as simple retest effects, and the Pearson r coefficients obtained in the police sample suggest that the shift in scores is a result of individuals separately decreasing their scores. The fact that the scores consistently decrease, even in the case of the social workers, rules out any suggestion of a group-effect regression to mean. Also, other results indicate that with the passage of time (age), scores on the Wilson-Patterson items generally move towards more rather than less conservatism. Findings tentatively suggest that more training is associated with a greater increase in liberalism. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed. Tabular data and 20 references are provided.