Value connotations, perspective and self‐perception

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Abstract
Two studies are reported in which judges rated statements concerning the non‐medical use of drugs before rating their own attitude on the issue. In study 1,185 school and 73 university students rated their own attitude on four scales chosen to manipulate the value connotations of the response language, as well as a fifth scale labelled 'extremely opposed to/extremely in favour of the non‐medical use of drugs'. As predicted by accentuation theory, judges were more prepared to describe their own position in evaluatively positive than evaluatively negative terms: thus, pro‐drug judges gave more extreme self‐ratings on a scale (P+) where the pro‐drug end was positive and the anti‐drug end was negative, whereas anti‐drug subjects gave more extreme self‐ratings on a scale (A+) where the pro‐drug end was negative and the anti‐drug end was positive. Judges overall gave more extreme self‐ratings on a scale (EP) where both ends were positively labelled than on a scale (EN) where both ends were negatively labelled. Predictions of the variable perspective model were not supported, manipulation of the range of statements presented for judgement (through exclusion of either extremely pro‐drug or extremely anti‐drug statements) had no effect on self‐rating. Study 2 generalized the findings of the first experiment. Self‐ratings obtained from 48 school students were again found to be more extreme on EP than on EN scales.

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