Questionnaire for diagnosis of beliefs in determinants of human nature

The paper presents development of a questionnaire, consisting of three scales intended to measure people's naive theories about determinants of human nature. The three scales correspond to beliefs in dominance of nature, belief in dominance of nurture, and belief in the interaction between nature and nurture. Each scale is comprised of eight statements, followed by 7-point answer scales. The questionnaire was tested in a series of studies (N=447, age range: 19 - 60 years). The reliability of the three scales - Cronbach's alpha - varied (from .80 to .63) as did the correlation of individual scale items with the overall results (from .76 to .38). The statistical analysis presented in this article demonstrates that the questionnaire indeed measures three independent beliefs in determinants of human nature. Data on the validity of the questionnaire are also presented. peerReviewed publishedVersion