collcge students who had answered the Philosophies o€ Human Nature Scale 14 mo. earlier retook the scale, along with a questionnaire assessing reactions to the President's death. Those Ss who agreed with Kennedy's policies and who felt a "great personal loss" showed less favorable views of human nature at the time of the post-assassination testing. Those less in agreement and Less conccrned showetl no such change. Followup testing 3 mo. after the first retesting in~licateJ that the disillusionment with human nature was apparently a temporary one.In discussing the assassination of President Kennedy with others during that weekend of November 22, 1963, we noticed chat the reaction of several people was a general disillusionment with human nacirre. The purpose of this study was to determine whcther this disillusion~nent might be a general finding among those persons most upset by the assassin? , tlon. '
METHODThe instruments used were the Philosophies of Human Nature Scale (PHN; Wrightsman, 1964) and a brief questionnaire assessing reactions to the President's death. T h e P H N Scale attempts to measure a person's beliefs about human nature. Emphasis is placed upon the interpersonal aspects of human narure. Six dimensions arc conceptualized as aspects of human nature: Trustworthiness-vs-Uncrusrworthiness; Altruism-vs-Selfishness; Strengch-of-will-andRationality-vs-Lack of Will Power-and-Irrationality; Independence-vs-Conformity; Simplicity-vs-Complexiry; and Similaricy (among people)-vs-Variability (among people). Scores 03 the first four dimensions are moderately correlated and hence, in this study, they have been pooled co give a general FavorablenessUnfavorableness score, which ranges between + I 6 8 and -168 ( S D = 37.16) and which measures the positiveness or negnriveness attributed to human nature. This is the dependent varizble of the present snldy. This measure has a testretest reliability coefficient of .90, using a 3-mo. time interval. (Ss used to determine this reliability figure were not Ss in the present smdy.)The other measure was a questionnaire to assess one's agreement with the President's policies and the extent of one's reaction to his assassination. It was composed of three questions. The first presented four issues (civil rights, tax cut, test ban, and foreign affairs) and asked S to indicate whether he agreed, disagreed, or had n o opinion about the President's stand. The second question dealt with reactions to the pre-assassination publicity about the Kennedy family, but since 25 of 30 Ss checked the same response ("I was interested in rending
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