Krosnick J A, Alwin D F
Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1989 Sep;57(3):416-25. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.57.3.416.
Two hypotheses about the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change were tested. The impressionable years hypothesis proposes that individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change during late adolescence and early adulthood and that susceptibility drops precipitously immediately thereafter and remains low throughout the rest of the life cycle. The increasing persistence hypothesis proposes that people become gradually more resistant to change throughout their lives. Structural equation models were applied to data from the 1956-1960, 1972-1976, and 1980 National Election Panel Studies in order to estimate the stability of political attitudes and unreliability in measures of them. The results support the impressionable years hypothesis and disconfirm the increasing persistence hypothesis. A decrease in the over-time consistency of attitude reports among 66- to 83-year-olds was found to be due to increased random measurement error in their reports, not to increased attitude change.
关于年龄与态度改变易感性之间的关系，有两种假说得到了检验。“易受影响期假说”提出，个体在青春期后期和成年早期极易受到态度改变的影响，此后易感性会急剧下降，并在整个生命周期的剩余时间里保持在较低水平。“持续增强假说”提出，人们在一生中对改变的抵抗力会逐渐增强。为了估计政治态度的稳定性及其测量的不可靠性，结构方程模型被应用于1956 - 1960年、1972 - 1976年和1980年全国选举小组研究的数据。结果支持了“易受影响期假说”，并否定了“持续增强假说”。研究发现，66至83岁人群态度报告随时间的一致性下降是由于其报告中随机测量误差增加，而非态度改变增加所致。
