Construct validity of the Attitudes About Reality Scale.

Résumé

To explore the construct validity of the Attitudes About Reality Scale, a measure of personal epistemology grounded on a social constructionist to logical positivist continuum, 118 employees of a mental health center completed the Attitudes About Reality Scale, three subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Inventory as a measure of empathy, the Social Interest Inventory as a measure of the Adlerian social interest concept, the Multistimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance-I as a measure of tolerance for ambiguity, the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Significant correlations were found between scores on the Attitudes About Reality Scale and both The Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale and Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance-I as hypothesized. Those individuals holding master's and doctoral degrees scored significantly lower on the Attitudes About Reality Scale in the social constructionist direction than those with technical or trade school education, but no other differences on demographic measures were noted.