A Preliminary Investigation of the Role of Differential ...

A Preliminary Investigation of the Role of Differential Complexity and Response Style in Measuring Attitudes Toward People With Disabilities Michael J. Millington Douglas C. Strohmer Chris A. Reid Louisiana State University Medical Center Paul M. Spengler Ball State University

ABSTRACT. This report investigated a potentially complex relationship between cognitive complexity and attitudes towards people with disabilities in a 3-part study using two undergraduate student samples. In Study 1 (n = 126), subjects' responses to the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP-O) were not significantly correlated with the Repertory Grid Test (RGT). This finding suggests no relationship between attitudes and a generic measure of cognitive complexity. In Study 2 (n = 57), subjects' responses to the ATDP-O were positively correlated with a disabilityspecific repertory grid technique. This finding suggests an inverse relationship between domain-specific cognitive complexity and positive attitudes. In Study 3, findings from Study 1 were reanalyzed. Subjects' responses to the ATDP-O were transformed using a repertory grid scoring technique; significant correlations were found between the tendency of subjects to respond redundantly and positive attitudes as measured by the ATDP-O, and the tendency to respond redundantly and lower cognitive complexity as measured by the RGT. These findings suggest that a large group of individuals who process information by focusing on differences, rather than similarities, may be inappropriately assessed by the ATDP, or other instruments that use a similar format in assessing attitudes.

The relationship between attitudes and disability has been a long-standing topic of research and speculation in the field of rehabilitation counseling (Greenwood & Johnson, 1987; Livneh, 1991; Wright, 1960; Yuker & Block, 1988). It is an REHABILITATION PSYCHOLOGY

Vol. 41, No. 3, 1996

© 1996 by the Division of Rehabilitation Psychology of the American Psychological Association Published by Springer Publishing Company, Inc., 536 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

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important component of the larger body of attitude research, which has been characterized by a variety of divergent, confusing, and competing definitions (Katz, 1960; Triandis, 1971). The viability and importance of attitude studies for rehabilitation psychology is predicated on the assumptions that attitudes (a) reflect a predisposition to act in stereotypical, predictable ways toward, or in the presence of, the attitude referent (Thurston, 1928), and (b) attitudes are subject to change via experience, and differ in intensity and commitment over time. The motivation for studying attitudes toward people with disabilities stems from the identification of negative attitudes and their apparent connection to bias and discrimination. Negative attitudes are thought to be at least partially responsible for discrimination encountered by people with disabilities in many social facets of life (e.g., Anthony, 1984; Perry & Apostal, 1986; Satcher & Dooley-Dickey, 1992; Wright, 1988). Research concerning attitudes of nondisabled persons toward persons with a disability has taken numerous forms, including: assessment of attitudes (Grand, Bernier, & Strohmer, 1982; Siller, 1976), behavioral aspects of attitudes (e.g., Glenwick & Arata, 1977), and cognitive-affective components of attitudes (e.g., Marinelli, 1974). Most research in this area has focused on assessment of attitudes. Far less attention has been directed toward the cognitive components of attitudes. Of particular interest in the research reported in this paper is the relationship between a cognitive information processing variable (cognitive complexity) and self-reported attitudes.

COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY AND ATTITUDES Cognitive complexity is an information processing variable related to the ability of people to differentiate and integrate stimuli (Harvey, Hunt, & Schroder, 1961) particularly for the purpose of making judgments. The concept was introduced by Bieri (1955), and draws on personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). Bieri and colleagues (1966) defined cognitive complexity as "the capacity to construe social behavior in a multidimensional way" (p. 185). High complexity is associated with the tendency toward multidimensional information processing, while low complexity suggests a unidimensional style associated with limited information processing. Aspects of cognitive complexity have been well linked with a variety of judgment behaviors pertinent to the study of attitudes. While cognitive complexity is not correlated with the middle or upper ranges of intelligence (Plotnick, 1961), social judgment research has found that high cognitive complexity is related to accuracy in interpersonal perceptions (Bieri et al., 1966; Goldstein & Black, 1978), and low cognitive complexity is linked with primacy and recency effects in impression formation (Delia, Clark, & Switzer, 1979; Leventhal & Singer, 1964; O'Keefe, Delia, & O'Keefe, 1977; Rosenkrantz & Crockett, 1965). Similarly, clinical judgment research indicates that cognitively complex clinicians make more accurate judgments, and are less likely to resort to diagnostic overshadowing and stereotyping (Holloway& Wolleat, 1980; Miller & Bieri, 1963; Plotnick, 1961; Tripodi & Bieri, 1964; Wolfe, 1974). Thus, our argument in this paper is that individuals who

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are cognitively complex and who as a result tend to be less subject to bias and simplicity in their judgment-making should tend to have more favorable attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. This paper reports on three ex-post-facto studies designed to explore the relationship between cognitive complexity and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. The studies examined this relationship from three perspectives: (1) using a general measure of complexity, (2) using a disability-specific measure of complexity, and (3) examining instrument structure and response style.

STUDY 1 In Study 1 we reasoned that there should be a relationship between measures of attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and measures of complexity. On the one hand individuals who possess negative attitudes toward individuals with disabilities tend to see people with disabilities as different, incompetent, inferior, and as having negative characteristics (Yuker, 1988). On the other hand, cognitively complex individuals tend to show more predictive accuracy (Bieri, 1955), make better interpersonal predictions (Leventhal, 1957), be more unbiased in impression formation (Petronko & Perin, 1970), and in general to be less stereotypical in their views of others. So it seems likely that complex individuals should have more positive attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and, as a result, score higher on measures of attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between cognitive complexity and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. In specific, we hypothesized that there would be a significant correlation between scores on the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale-Form O (ATDP-O) (Yuker, Block, & Campbell, 1960) and the Repertory Grid Test (RGT) (Bieri et al., 1966). Method Participants. The participants in this study were 126 undergraduate students from two universities, one in the Midwest and one in the Southeast. Participation was voluntary. Students were contacted by posted advertisement recruiting subjects for a Disability Research Study. Participants ranged in age from 17 to 43 with a mean age of 21. Seventy percent of the participants were female and 30% were male. Instrumentation. Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale-Form O. The ATDP-O (Yuker et al., 1960) was used to measure attitudes toward persons with disabilities. The ATDP-O uses a 6-point Likert-type scale to determine the extent to which individuals agree or disagree with 20 statements about persons with disabilities. The maximum possible score is 120. Normative data from a large composite norm group from 3 8 separate studies indicate a mean score for the ATDP-O of 79.7 (Yuker & Block, 1988). The mean, standard deviation, and range for the current sample wereM= 83.47, SD= 14.21, range from 42 to 112. Yuker and Block(1988) reviewed over 325 published studies which have utilized the ATDP-O and con-

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eluded that the instrument is reliable and valid. The internal consistency reliability estimate for the current sample was .77. Repertory Grid Test. The Repertory Grid Test (RGT) was used to measure cognitive complexity. The RGT measures cognitive complexity by examining the relative number of dimensions an individual utilizes in construing events, objects, or persons (Tripodi & Bieri, 1964). The repertory grid technique employed in developing this test has been applied in well over 1,000 published studies (Neimeyer, Baker, & Neimeyer, 1990). A 4 times 6 version of Bieri and colleagues' (1966) 10 times 10 repertory grid test was used in this research. This version was developed by Spengler and Strohmer (1994). Two modifications were made. The first modification was to shorten the 10 times 10 matrix to a 4 times 6 matrix. The 4 times 6 matrix consists of a subset of four role types (mother, friend of opposite gender, person with whom you feel most uncomfortable, supervisor, or boss) and six constructs (outgoing-shy, adjustedmaladjusted, decisive-indecisive, calm-excitable, interested in others-self-absorbed, cheerful-ill humored). Cognitive complexity is measured by comparing the number of redundant constructs used to rate each role type. Higher scores are considered cogniti vely simple because the roles are rated similarly or along the same dimension (e.g., good-bad), across the various constructs. Lower scores represent higher complexity because the rater utilized greater differentiation in applying the six constructs to the four role types. Scores may range from 0 to 60, with a mean reported by Spengler and Strohmer for the norming sample of 21.03. The mean, standard deviation, and range for participants in this study were M = 22.21, SD = 9.06, range from 7 to 51. Spengler and Strohmer report a 1-week test-retest reliability for the 4 times 6 grid of .82. The second modification consisted of physically arranging the grid as a series of 6-point Likert-type questions, similar to procedures utilized by Bavelas, J. B., Chan, A. S., & Guthrie, J. A. (1976), instead of the original 10 times 10 matrix format utilized by Bieri and colleagues (1966). Thus, the modified version presented each of the four role types alone followed by a repetition of the same set of six 6-point bipolar constructs used to rate each role type. Consistent with recommendations made by Vannoy (1965), and independently validated in subsequent research (Schneier, 1979), the alphanumeric symbols "3L," "2L," "1L," "1R," "2R," and "3R" were used to rate the bipolar constructs, and to reduce social desirability response sets associated with the symbols "+" and "-." Procedure and Data Analysis. Participants were administered the ATDP-O and the 4 times 6 RGT in counterbalanced order. They also completed a participant demographics sheet. The test of Hypothesis HI was to examine simple correlation between RGT scores and the ATDP-O attitude score. Results Correlational Analysis. The correlational analysis used alpha .05 as the criterion of significance. The correlation between the RGT and the ATDP-O attitude measure was not significant (r = .08, ra). The null hypothesis was not rejected in this case.

Cognitive Complexity Discussion No relationship between the ATDP-O and the RGT was found in Study 1 . This finding suggests that there is no meaningful relationship between this measure of attitude and a generic measure of cognitive complexity. However, it has been argued that cognitive complexity may be domain-specific (Bodden, 1970; Brown, 1987; Neimeyer, Metzler, & Bowman, 1988). In this case, an individual may be cognitively complex in certain situations and about certain factors or issues but cognitively simple in other domains or about other issues. To address this issue, Study 2 tested the relationship between a disability-specific measure of cognitive complexity and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities as measured by the ATDP-O. STUDY 2

In Study 2 we followed up on the results of Study 1 by constructing a disabilityspecific version of the RGT, using the repertory grid technique developed by Kelly (1955). The notion of domain specific complexity is well supported in the research literature. Bodden (1970), and later Neimeyer, Metzler, and Bowman (1988), used a modified version of the RGT to study the relationship between complexity and vocational choice. Other researchers have taken the same approach in studying their areas of interest. For example, Vacc (1 987) used a modified version of the repertory grid technique to study complexity about older adults, Walker and Spengler (1994) used a modified version of the RGT to study complexity about AIDS issues, and Gard (1993) used a modified RGT to study complexity about gender issues. Thus, in Study 2 we tested the hypothesis that there is a relationship between domain-specific cognitive complexity and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. In specific, we hypothesized that there would be a significant correlation between favorable attitudes toward individuals with disabilities as measured by the ATDP-O (Yuker, Block, & Campbell, 1960) and higher cognitive complexity as measured by a disability-specific Repertory Grid Test (RGT-DS). Method Participants. The participants in this study were 57 undergraduate students at a large southeastern university. Participation was voluntary. Students were contacted by posted advertisement recruiting subjects for a Disability Research Study. Participants ranged in age from 1 8 to 39 with a mean age of 2 1 . Seventy percent of the participants were female and 30% were male. Instrumentation. Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale - Form O. The ATDP-O (Yuker, Block, & Campbell, 1960) was used to measure attitudes toward persons with disabilities.

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Repertory Grid Test-Disability-specific. A modified version of the 4 times 6 version (Spengler & Strohmer, 1994) of Bieri and colleagues' (1966) 10 times 10 RGT was used in this research. The 5 times 6 matrix consists of a subset of five role types (person with a visual impairment, person who has cerebral palsy, person with an above-the-knee amputation, person with a chronic psychiatric disorder, person with no known physical or mental disabilities) and six constructs (outgoing-shy, adjusted-maladjusted, decisive-indecisive, calm-excitable, interested in othersself-absorbed, cheerful-ill humored). As with other forms of the RGT (general or domain-specific), cognitive complexity is measured by comparing the number of redundant constructs used to rate each role type. Higher scores are considered cognitively simple because the roles are rated similarly or along the same dimension (e.g., good-bad), across the various constructs. Lower scores represent higher complexity because the rater utilized greater differentiation in applying the six constructs to the five role types. Scores may range from 0 to 75, with a mean for this sample of 34.14. Procedure and Data Analysis. Participants were administered the ATDP-O and the RGT-DS in counterbalanced order. They also completed a participant demographics sheet. The test of Hypothesis H2 was to examine the simple correlation between RGTDS scores and the ATDP-O attitude score.

Results Correlational Analysis. The correlational analysis used alpha .05 as the criterion of significance. The correlation between the RGT-DS and the ATDP-O attitude measure was significant (r = .394,;? = .002). The null hypothesis was rejected in this case. However, the predicted correlation should have been negative. That is, as ATDP scores went up (suggesting more positive attitudes) scores on the RGT-DS should have gone down (suggesting higher complexity). In this case, higher RGTDS scores (suggesting lower complexity) were significantly related to higher ATDP scores (suggesting more positive attitudes).

Discussion In Study 2 a relationship was found between RGT-DS scores and ATDP scores. This relationship, however, was not in the predicted direction. Cognitive complexity about disability appeared to be inversely related to attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. This result suggests at least two interpretations. First, it may be that more cognitively complex individuals have less favorable attitudes than cognitively simple individuals. This interpretation is not consistent with the vast literature concerning cognitive complexity. A second interpretation is that individuals who are cognitively complex are inappropriately assessed by the

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ATDP and other instruments that use a similar format in assessing attitudes. In Study 3 we attempted to further explicate the second interpretation by moving from the level of the inferences that can be derived from the two instruments to the test-taking task and assumptions that underlie the instruments.

STUDY 3 Cognitive complexity, as measured by instruments based on the repertory grid technique, is inferred by examining participant redundancy in responding to items. The underlying assumption is that cognitive complexity can be inferred from an individual's ability to see the differences within a variety of role types. For example, noting that a particular role type may be high on certain characteristics and low on others. However, the most popular direct measure of attitudes, the ATDP, measures positive attitudes based on perceived similarities. That is, the extent to which an individual does not see differences between themselves and individuals with disabilities, the more favorable their attitudes are thought to be. For example, agreeing with the item, "Disabled people are the same as anyone else," is seen as reflective of a positive attitude. Based on this analysis, it seems likely that a cognitively complex individual's differential response style will yield scores on the ATDP which suggest less favorable attitudes. In orderto test interpretation, we reanalyzed the data from Study 1 and asked the research questions: Do the response tendencies shown on the RGT (redundant or nonredundant) generalize to responding on the ATDP and if so, is the tendency to respond redundantly, or nonredundantly, on the ATDP systematically related to ATDP scores?

Method Study 3 was a reanalysis of data from Study 1. No new participants or instruments were used. For purposes of this study, a new variable was constructed which was a measure of a respondent's tendency to respond redundantly to the ATDP. Data Analysis. Measuring ATDP-O redundancy. The purpose of the ATDP-O redundancy score was to create a measure of redundancy in response similar to that produced by the repertory grid technique, thus allowing a meaningful comparison between the two instruments. The scoring protocol for the RGT employs the counting rule: Nlr(N- r)\ where N=the number of times a value from the subset of possible responses was selected, and r = 2 (see Hays, 1988). The counting rule provides a number for each value within the subset of the instrument. The RGT score is an aggregate of the subset scores. The redundancy score for the ATDP-O was scored using the same counting rule, the score being an aggregate of value counts. In this way, a direct comparison can be made between the RGT score and the responses to items on the ATDP-O.

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Results Correlational Analysis. The correlational analysis used alpha .05 as the criterion of significance. The correlation between the ATDP-O redundancy measure, and the RGT was significant atp = .1783 (alpha = .05). This suggests that individuals who responded redundantly on the RGT were also redundant on the ATDP. The correlation between the ATDP-O attitude measure and the ATDP-O redundancy measure was also significant atp = .4947 (alpha = .01). This suggests that individuals who responded redundantly on the ATDP obtained higher, more positive attitude scores.

Discussion The results of Study 3 suggest that the tendency to respond redundantly generalizes across measures, as individuals who had high redundancy scores on the RGT also had high redundancy scores on the ATDP. The results also suggest that the tendency to respond redundantly on the ATDP is related to ATDP scores with more redundancy related to higher scores.

GENERAL DISCUSSION The purpose of the research reported here was to explore the relationship between attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and cognitive complexity. Our major premise was that there should be a positive relationship between cognitive complexity and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. Our results at first seemed counter-intuitive in that they suggested that cognitive complexity, which has historically been related to less biased, nonstereotypical decision-making, was not related or was even inversely related to attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. A reanalysis of our data suggested that a large group of individuals who process information by focusing on differences rather than on similarities would be inappropriately assessed by the ATDP or other instruments that use a similarity-oriented format in assessing attitudes. This finding is also consistent with the body of research that suggests cognitively complex people tend to be less extreme in their judgments (see Bieri et al., 1966) and would thus achieve lower scores simply because they don't endorse extreme ends of any rating scale. While the results are not conclusive, they are worthy of discussion and further inquiry and have both measurement and theoretical implications for the study of attitudes.

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Measurement Implications The ATDP-0 is a global measure of attitudes. The respondent is asked to respond according to a generalized perception of disability. That no relationship or inverse relationship was found between this measure and cognitive complexity may be because completing the ATDP is a cognitively simple task. In fact adopting a frame of reference or response style that ignores differences among individuals, e.g., "everyone is the same," and endorsing all high similarity items would yield the highest score. Our results may suggest that reporting extremely favorable attitudes may be related to a cognitively simple approach to the referent. This may be similar to what has been called the "halo" effect seen in other disability-related research (see Wright, 1960).

Theoretical Implications Clinicians who process information in complex ways are thought to make better decisions and to be less subject to a variety of biases (Holloway & Wolleat, 1980; Miller & Bieri, 1963; Plotnick, 1961; Tripodi & Bieri, 1964; Wolfe, 1974). Thus, one might argue that rehabilitation counselors who are more attuned to the realistic differences between themselves and their clients would be less subject to bias, make better decisions, and thus be better at their jobs. Yet the most popular direct measure of attitudes, the ATDP, measures positive attitudes based on perceived similarities and seems to negatively weight attending to differences. Our findings of no relationship or an inverse relationship between complexity and attitudes seems to call into question the assumption of the counselor attitudes research which assumes that higher ATDP scores should result in better client-counselor interaction (Krauft, Rubin, Cook, & Bozarth, 1976; Pinkerton & McAleer, 1976).

Limitations These results must be considered in light of the limitations of the research. First, a college sample was employed in this research, thus generalization beyond this group must be done cautiously. However, a great deal of the research examining attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and the research examining complexity has used student samples. In addition, this type of sample seems justified given that this research is in its initial stages. Second, we measured only one type of complexity, differential complexity, and although this type of complexity has been consistently found to be positively related to favorable judgment outcomes, it may be that other types of complexity in processing information may yield different results. Third, the repertory grid task developed for Study 2 is of unknown reliability and validity. However, the method employed in developing this version has been applied in over 1,000 published studies (Neimeyer, Baker, & Neimeyer, 1990) and

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was identical to that employed by a number of other researchers in the area of domain-specific cognitive complexity (e.g., Bodden, 1970).

Research Directions These results are preliminary but have heuristic value for suggesting additional research directions: (a) the effect of demographic variables such as age, sex, and education upon the relationship between cognitive complexity and attitudes, (b) further study of redundancy as a response style to measures of attitudes toward people with disabilities, (c) the role of cognitive complexity in attitude development and change, (d) the role of different types of complexity, e.g., differential and integrative complexity, in attitudes toward individuals with disabilities, and (e) the relationship between complexity and nondirect measures of attitudes.

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Satcher, J., & Dooley-Dickey, K. (1992). Attitudes of human-resource management students towards persons with disabilities. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, 35, 248-252. Schneier, C. E. (1979). Measuringcognitive complexity: Developing reliability, validity, and norm tables for a personality instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 39, 599-612. Siller, J. (1976). Attitudes toward disability. In H. Rusalem & D. Malikin (Eds.), Contemporary vocational rehabilitation. New York: New York University Press. Spengler, P. M., & Strohmer, D. C. (1994). Stability of a 4 times 6 repertory grid for measuring cognitive complexity. Journal of Constructionist Psychology, 7, 137-145. Spengler, P. M., & Strohmer, D. C. (in press). Counselor complexity and clinical judgment: Challenging the model of the average judge. Journal of Counseling Psychology. Triandis, H. C. (1971). Attitude and attitude change. New York: John Wiley. Tringo, J. L. (1970). The hierarchy of preference toward disability groups. Journal of Special Education, 4, 295-306. Tripodi, T., &Bieri, J. (1964). Information transmission in clinical judgments as a function of the stimulus dimensionality and cognitive complexity. Journal of Personality, 32, 119-137. Vacc, N. A. (1987). Gerontological Counseling Grid: Makingjudgments about older adults. Counselor Education and Supervision, 8, 311-316. Wright, B. (1960). Physical disability: A psychological approach. New York: Harper & Row. Wright, B. (1988). Attitudes and the fundamental negative bias: Conditions and corrections. In H. E. Yuker(Ed.), Attitudes towardpersons with disabilities (pp. 3-21). New York: Springer. Yuker, H. (1988). Perceptions of severely and multiply disabled persons. Journal of the Multihandicapped Person, I, 5-16. Yuker, H., & Block, J. (1988). Research with the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scales (ATDP): 1960-1985. Hofstra University, Hempstead,NY. Yuker, H., Block, J., & Campbell, W. (1960). A scale to measure attitudes toward disabled persons. Albertson, NY: Human Resources Center. Offprints. Requests for offprints should be directed to Michael J. Millington, Ph.D., Rm. 8A2, Allied Health, 1900 Gravier Street, New Orleans, LA 70112. Submitted: November 1994 Revised: April 1995 Revised: August 1995 Accepted: November 1995