Abstract
The coming of the computer age has provided widespread discussion of the effects on the individual and society of this most recent and powerful intellectual and technological revolution. Discussions of the psychological implications of the computer have produced a literature that is primarily polemic and, in any case, not measurement oriented with respect to identifying basic issues and central attitudes. In this article, measurement procedures including the development and testing of the Cybernetics Attitude Scale (the computer’s psychological effect in each of 10 sectors of society) and a factor analytic study of the collected data are presented. The article concludes with a discussion of the research implications of the factor analytic findings and the ways in which these findings illumine the problem of the meaning of the computer for the individual and society.
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Wagman, M.Conceptual analysis of the psychological meaning of the computer in ten sectors of society. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1981.
Wagman, M.The cybernetics attitude scale. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1978.
Tucker, L. R.DAPPFER: Direct artificial personal probability factor rotations. Unpublished manuscript and computer program, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980.
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The research was supported by a grant from the University of Illinois Graduate College Research Board. The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Patricia Cavanee and William Ross in collecting and analyzing the experimental data.
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Wagman, M. A factor analytic study of the psychological implications of the computer for the individual and society. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 15, 413–419 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203674
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203674