Ajduković, Dea.
(2007).
Attitude change and need for cognition in debaters and non-debaters .
Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology.
[mentor Čorkalo Biruški, Dinka].
Abstract
The problems of this research were to establish whether there is a difference between debaters and non-debaters in the magnitude of attitude change after argumentation against a proposal and whether there is a difference between debaters and non-debaters in the need for cognition. The hypotheses were that debaters will change their initial attitudes less than non-debaters, and that debaters will have a higher score on the Need for Cognition Scale. The participants of this research were high-school students, members of high-school debate clubs (N=30) and high-school students who are not members of debate clubs (N=58). Three weeks after the initial measure of the attitude towards the object (lowering the age limit for the consumption of alcohol from 18 years to 16 years), participants wrote down arguments opposing this proposal, and the Need for Cognition Scale was administered. The results show that debaters changed their initial attitudes to the same extent as non-debaters; debaters, however, scored higher on the Need for Cognition Scale. Age of participants proved to be a relevant variable, in that younger participants had a more restrictive initial attitude, which was more resistant to change, compared to older participants.
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