Vigilance and the Perceptions of Teachers and Students

Abstract

Data were obtained on a measure of cognitive differentiation from a group of 70 teachers and a group of 66 non-teachers. Teachers were more differentiating in their perceptions of their disliked students and non-teachers were more differentiating in their perceptions of their disliked instructors. As predicted in neither sample were disliked persons significantly more differentiated by females than males. Male non-teachers were more differentiating of both liked and disliked instructors while no such sex difference was found for the teacher group. It was suggested that sex differences occurred when superior persons were being rated. Males are probably more threatened by authority figures (instructors) than are females. Consequently males would be more attentive to the personal characteristics of their instructors. These findings were discussed in relation to the “vigilance” hypothesis suggested by Miller and Bieri (1965) and Irwin, et al. (1967).