Social Attitudes: Social Status and Sibling Constellation Correlates

Abstract

Regression surface analysis was used to examine Adler's proposition that adults' social attitudes are related to siblings' variables and that the relations vary at different levels of family social situations. Surfaces were constructed from regression models which examined possible linear, interaction and curvilinear relations between birth order and sibsize and measures of dogmatism, radical-conservative attitudes, and tough-minded versus tender-minded social attitudes, at different family social-status levels for 250 adults. Generally, the findings suggest that at different levels of both sibsize and birth order the social attitudes of adults from lower social-status families, in relation to adults from higher status families, are more dogmatic and tough-minded. Also, at each social-status level adults from larger families have a tendency for lower dogmatism and more tender-minded attitudes.