Needs for Structure, Tolerance of Ambiguity and Dogmatism in Adolescents

Abstract

Measures of structure needs, ambiguity tolerance, and dogmatism were given to a sample of urban adolescents in British Columbia. Structure need scores were significantly and negatively correlated with scores of ambiguity tolerance and significantly and positively correlated with scores of dogmatism ( rs from .32 to –.45). Dogmatism and ambiguity tolerance scores were negatively correlated, as anticipated from MacDonald's work (1970). The findings are taken as evidence of construct validity for the structure inventory.