The present investigation studied valence of religious attitude, congruence-incongruence of attitude-change, and. sex differences in relation to these two factors. It was hypothesized that:
1. Extremists would be least likely to change their attitudes, with less-than-extremists and neutrals following in ascending order of likelihood of change.
2. Congruent changes (changes in the direction of communication) would be more likely than incongruent changes (changes in a direction away from that of the communication).
3. Boys would be more likely to change, and to a greater extent, than girls.
Subjects were 110 undergraduates, mostly Hindus, 75 boys and 35 girls. Attitude was measured by a 60-item religious Attitude Scale. The study followed a before-and-after experimental design. As pre-test, the whole group was given the religious Attitude Scale. On the basis of scores obtained, Ss were then classified into 6 valence groups, ranging from extreme positivist to extreme negativist, Ss from each valence group were randomly assigned to one of three groups-Control, Experimental (Favorable) and Experimental (Unfavorable), with the exception that there were no extreme positivists in Experimental Group (Favorable) and no extreme negativists in Experimental group (Unfavorable).
These two experimental groups were by turns exposed to communication, the `Favorable' to favorable communication (which contained positive comments about religion) and the `Unfavorable' group to unfavorable communication (which showed religion in a negative light). Communication consisted of a lecture, lasting for 15-20 minutes, and was read out by the investigator from a printed pamphlet.
Finally, all Ss were given the post-test-a readministration of the Attitude Scale. The whole procedure was followed separately for girls and boys. A comparison between pre- and post-test scores of Control and Experimental groups, and between girls and boys, gave a verification of the hypotheses.
The following results were obtained.
1. Positivist boys were significantly more likely to change than negativist boys. Both positivist and negativist girls were about equally likely to change.
2. Among boys, extreme negativists were least likely to change, neutral positivists were most likely to change, less-than-extremist positivists came next in descending order, followed by neutral negativists. Extreme positivists and less-than-extreme negativists were equally likely to change. There were no significant differences among the girls.
3. There were no significant differences between extent of change in the different valence groups.
4. Congruent and. incongruent changes were equally likely to occur.
5. Boys and girls were equally likely to change, but boys, on an average, changed to a greater extent than girls.