| Abstract: | This study gathered ratings of the importance of the 36 Rokeach terminal and instrumental values from 37 black adults, 53 white adults, 105 black and 113 white students. The purpose was to replicate Ness and Stith's (1984) [Ness, T. E., and Smith, M. T. (1984). Middle-class values in blacks and whites. In Pitts, R. E., and Woodside, A. G. (Eds.), Personal values and consumer psychology (pp. 231–237). Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co.] finding that black adults rated many of these values higher than did white adults at the same socioeconomic level. The results support this finding. Black students rated many of the values higher than white students, and students in general rated many of the values higher than did adults in general. Measuring and controlling for two response sets, yeasaying and social desirability, showed that the race difference for the adult subsample could not be ascribed to these artifacts, but that many apparent age differences in value ratings could be accounted for by response set effects. |
