Changing Attitudes Toward Women: A Longitudinal Study of College Students

Abstract

Cross sectional data indicate that college students show more liberal attitudes toward women with increasing years of college attendance. This shift may reflect intraindividual change or simply differential dropout of more traditionally oriented students. To study this problem longitudinally, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale was administered to 430 university students who had completed the same questionnaire 2 years earlier. Attitudes toward women generally became more liberal over time for both male and female students, supporting the intraindividual shift hypothesis. For both sexes, attitudes involving women's educational-vocational rights became more liberal than those involving women's marital and maternal responsibilities. Socio-demographic characteristics of subjects who became more traditional were compared with those of subjects who became more liberal.