ATTITUDES TOWARD CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT - A FUNCTION OF LEADERSHIP-STYLE,GENDER AND PERSONALITY

A survey of attitudes towards capital punishment was undertaken to inv estigate the opinions upheld by 126 first year male and female univers ity students. Subjects were divided into one of four leadership groups according to their scores on the Leadership Ability Evaluation. A two -way analysis of variance was used to examine subjects' attitudes towa rds capital punishment on the basis of gender and leadership style. Th e Autocratic-Submissive and Autocratic-Aggressive leadership grounds w ere found to have significantly harsher attitudes towards capital puni shment from the Laissez-faire leadership group. No significant gender differences were found for this variable. Evaluation of personality wi th the California psychological Survey showed that tolerance and attit ude toward capital punishment were significantly correlated. The lower the subject's tolerance, the harsher the attitude toward capital puni shment.