The risky-shift phenomenon was examined among 170 Catholic senior high school boys and girls for their cognitive and affective ratings about the concepts of “sex” and “faith and reason.” Girls' scores on the Cloze test dealing with the cognitive dimension of the concepts increased significantly while the boys' scores were less exact and more varied following small group discussion. Factor scores on the evaluative, potency, and activity dimensions of the semantic differential measuring the two concepts supported the hypothesis that the sex of the Catholic student and type of concept influence shifts toward a riskier or divergent attitude following small group discussion.
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