MINNESOTA STUDIES IN WAR PSYCHOLOGY: I. A SET OF MINIATURE SCALES FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF ATTITUDES RELATED TO MORALE.

The morale inventory in this paper is composed of 11 miniature scales designed to measure attitudes related to various phases of morale. The scales are internally relatively homogeneous, and in spite of their brevity provide satisfactory retest reliabilities. The scales include items relating to personal morale of the emotional sort; confidence in the favorable outcome of the war; distrust of news sources; willingness to have civil liberties and social reforms suspended during the war; support of the war; and aggression toward the enemy, foreign-born in this country, our allies, our government and laws, and people in general. Intercorrelations of the scales indicate that morale is by no means a unitary variable. The correlations are generally low, although some interesting relationships come to light. Studies of a sample of the adult population of Minneapolis have shown that attitudes which would be considered solely on rational grounds to be favorable to the furtherance of the War effort do not always tend to go together. It has been found, for example, that favorable attitudes toward our allies and our government and laws are negatively correlated with expressions of aggression toward the enemy and toward aliens in this country. Aggressive attitudes, whether favorable or unfavorable to the war effort tend to be associated. Personal morale and optimism as to the course of the war appear to be relatively independent of other attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]