\ selected cro-'-scction of the working population (N = 642) wa^ interviewed with respect to their job motivations The extent to which extrinsic or intrinsic job components were valued wa;-found to be related to occupational level At higher occupational levels, intrinsic job components lopporiumt> for selfexpression, interest-value of work, etc) weie more \alued At lower occupational levels, extrinsic job components (pa\, securin, etc) were more valued No sex differences were found in the value placed on intrinsic or extrinsic factors in general Howe\ er, women placed a higher value on "good co-workers'' than did men, while men placed a relatively higher value on the opportunity to use their talent or skill.: : c
It was hypothesized that the salience of group membership might be aroused implicitly by cues provided in the objective situation without the explicit reminders of group membership used in previous research. Further, that by merely varying the number of persons of each sex, in an aggregate responding to a questionnaire which included material relevant to the sex group norms, the salience of the norms of the respective groups would be aroused, and these norms would influence responses to the relevant material. Subjects responded anonymously to a questionnaire dealing with attitudes toward feminism and toward child rearing, under three conditions of group composition, with either a male or female experimenter. The hypothesis was clearly supported for males but not for females. That is, males' responses on feminist items varied significantly over the conditions of group composition, but females' did not. Responses to the child-rearing items did not vary for either sex over conditions of group composition. The pattern of results for male subjects was accounted for as the result of the resolution of conflicting norms -chauvinism and chivalry. The relevance of this experiment to methodological procedures is indicated, it being stressed that in the administration of group questionnaires, even though anonymous, neither the characteristics of the individuals composing the aggregate nor those of the administrator could be ignored.
the past 40 years of large-scale surveys, Sears (1976) has reached an unequivocal conclusion: despite wars, depressions, and public scandals, despite the growing distrust of and cynicism toward government leaders, the public has remained quite positive in their evaluations of those leaders. Fully 76 percent of all public figures were evaluated positively by respondents to Gallup polls between 1935 and 1975. Even at the height of the Watergate scandals only the disgraced Nixon, Dean, Mitchell, and Ehrlichman of 18 leaders were evaluated negatively by respondents to Michigan's 1974 CPS election study. Similarly, only 2 of 13 elected officials were evaluated negatively by blacks during the Watts riots (Sears, 1969). This pattern of positivity certainly contrasts with the image of public cynicism about "politicians" (Mitchell, 1959), and with the currently low level of public trust in government (Miller, 1974;Miller and Miller, 1977). Likewise the practical implications of a Abstract The "positivity bias" is a term used to describe the consistent favorable evaluation of public figures found in surveys over the past 40 years. This paper explored several possible artifactual explanations for this bias, focusing on the survey instrument itself. Two experiments varied the labeling and ordering of scale endpoints, the affective value of the initial context evaluated, and the presence or absence of a prestigious job title associated with the name of the public figure. None of the variations produced significantly different levels of positivity than the standard control condition used in each experiment.
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