Attitude Change in Marine Recruit Training

Abstract

Attitudes toward the military and toward superior officers were found to change in a negative direction during recruit training. Multiple-regression analysis of biographical variables to a criterion of attitude change revealed that the recruit whose attitude changed in a positive direction can be characterized as young, of below-average intelligence, and from a lower socioeconomic background. Platoon variations on the criterion of attitude change existed independently of variations in platoon composition. An analysis which compared the use of change scores as opposed to the use of final attitude score corrected for initial attitude level indicated that the two methods were relatively comparable.