NEGATIVE EVENTS EXPERIENCED BY SELF AND PREDICTED TO HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED BY OTHERS AS RELATED TO POLITICAL ORIENTATION

Subjects reported on the frequency with which they had experienced eac h of 18 negative events, the frequency they believed that other person s, similar to themselves, had experienced these events, and also provi ded data on their political orientation. Males and females do not diff er significantly from one another in frequency of self-reported negati ve events or in estimates of how often other persons experience these events. Both males and females believe that persons, similar to themse lves, have experienced these events more often than they have experien ced them. The frequencies with which Ss report having experienced nega tive events and their estimates of how often they happened to others a re significantly positively correlated for both sexes. Neither the fre quencies of self-reported nor the estimated frequencies of others expe riencing negative events are significantly related to political orient ation for males or females. However, the difference between individual Ss' self-reported negative events and their estimates of how often ot her persons had experienced them correlated with self-described politi cal orientation, -0.75 for males and -0.77 for females. The negative s ign indicates that persons who are more liberal, along a liberal-conse rvative continuum, are substantially more prone to believe that other persons have experienced negative events more often than themselves. C opyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.