Reactions to the President's Assassination and Changes in Philosophies of Human Nature

Abstract

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

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin: Resonance of a national tragedy in psychotherapy.

“…Although many did not perceive any threat in the situation, many others expressed concerns with regard to national and personal safety, verbalized a sense of anxiety, sadness, anger, guilt, helplessness, or dissociation, and associated the crisis with thoughts about their relationship with a significant other and with painful personal memories. These reactions are also similar to public reactions reported by Associated Press on the World Wide Web (Nando.Net, 1995), and in line with reported public reactions to the death of Presidents Roosevelt (Orlansky, 1947) and Kennedy (Sheatsley & Feldman, 1964; Wrightsman & Noble, 1965). Our results are therefore congruent with data gathered elsewhere in the general population under similar conditions.…”

“…Rather than concern for political consequences of the event, the authors found that immediate reactions were most often of sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy and the children, feelings of sorrow and loss of a capable leader, anger at the assassin and personal shame that such a thing could happen. Wrightsman and Noble (1965) reported a temporary disillusionment with human nature among subjects who agreed with Kennedy’s policies. In an attempt to test Durkheim’s ideas, Briller (1977) looked at suicide rates in the United States for the week in November in which Kennedy died.…”

Newscasts and the Social Actuary

“…Five days after the assassination of President Kennedy, Wrightsman and Noble (1965) administered the Philosophy of Human Nature scale to 30 undergraduates who had taken the scale 14 months prior to Kennedy's assassination. Wrightsman and Noble (1965) reported, "those (approximately one half) who were most disturbed by the President's death had become more negative about human nature, while the scores of those who were less concerned did not change significantly" (p. 160).…”

“…But this expectation seems to me insufficient to account for the widespread social irresponsibility that we observed. Indeed, there is empirical evidence that news of events such as Robert Kennedy's murder cause subconscious alterations in a person's conceptions of the moral-ethical commitments of the human community, and these changes ultimately create or destroy the social bonds which determine whether human beings are concerned about one another's welfare (Hornstein, 1976:117-118). Another study, by Wrightsman and Noble (1965), is of particular interest in this context, because it investigated one of the psychological alterations that mediate the effects of news stories. Wrightsman and Noble found that "a person's philosophy of human nature may be changed temporarily by a dramatic piece of information or personal experience" (p. 159).…”