Seminal Agents in the Acquisition of International Orientations Among Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to (1) assess the relative impact of various sources of orientation in the acquisition of certain international orientations and (2) identify relationships between source usage and types of opinions and valuations displayed by 197 high school students in Seattle between the ages of fifteen and seventeen.Dependent variables selected consisted of answers given mostly to open-ended questions on peace and war. Independent variables were ratings of sixteen sources of orientations on each of ten major questions. In addition, the subjects were required to indicate the most important source in acquiring specific answers to open-ended questions. Some of the significant relationships between source usage and orientations towards war and peace include: (1) Subjects rating the school sources low in utility gave few responses pertaining to causes and outcome of war. (2) Religion, family, and friends were positively associated with three categories of the peace concept. (3) Responses pertaining to causes of war were positively associated with the ratings of friends, school and mass media. (4) Knowledge of techniques for preventing war was positively related to high utility rating of friends and mass media.Based on a frequency count of the most cited sources, mass media appeared to be the prime agent for the acquisition of the war concept with friends, religion, and school as secondary agents. In the development of the peace concept, friends seemed to be the prime agents with mass media, family (especially mother) and religion as secondary agents. Causes of war seemed to have been learned primarily from mass media with all the other sources rated much lower. Techniques for preventing war were essentially taught by friends and mass media, whereas school, religion and family were selected less frequently.