This study was concerned with the effect of social acts upon commitment to social responsibility. Commitment was defined as the pledging or binding of an individual to an act. It was typologized into: (a) commitment to an act which had not been previously performed, termed latent commitment; and (b) commitment to an act which had been previously performed, termed consistent commitment. / This study, basically, examined the effect of two factors upon the two types of commitment. First, the factor explicitness, whether an act is performed publically or privately, was of interest with regard to the influence that it might have upon two types of commitment. Second, the factor of number of acts performed was of interest; whether two, four, or eight acts might result in differences in the two types of commitment. / A modified social responsibility scale was administered to 216 students from East Carolina University both prior to and following the performance of acts which were manipulated in respect to explicitness and number of acts performed. Subjects were randomly assigned to the two levels of explicitness and three levels of numbers of acts. The subjects were randomized to a 2 x 3 factorial research design. / Data on the 216 subjects were analyzed using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) of a social responsibility scale. The independent variables were explicitness and number of acts performed. The conditional variables were latent commitment and consistent commitment. The scores of the subjects above midpoint on the social responsibility scale were taken as the dependent variable. / The results of the analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences in the latent commitment condition. The main effects of the interactions were not significantly different as a result of explicitness and/or number of acts performed. / The results of the analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences in the consistent commitment condition. Explicitness and number of acts performed made no significant differences in either main effects or interactions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2891. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74538 |
| Contributors | HASKINS, GERALD RICHARD., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 112 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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