Language and Social Attitudes.

Approximately six hundred respondents drawn from a population of undergraduate summer school students in the Montreal area were used to test two hypotheses: (1) French Canadians will hold attitudes of greater hostility toward authority than English Canadians; and (2) English speaking Canadians will hold attitudes of greater anxiety toward authority than will French Canadians. Each respondent completed a 24-item Likert type scale in his native language which measured four affective dimensions of attitudes toward authority: hostility, acceptance, anxiety, and neutrality. Ninety respondents were also given two sets of developmental questionnaires. The results of the study supported the hypotheses. There were no significant differences between French and English Canadians on attitudes of neutrality toward authority. It was concluded that language may serve as a tag to identify attitudes between cultural groups. (HOD)