Abstract

This study examines the relationship between two measures of individual differences in social cognition and the quality of eleventh grade students' persuasive writing. Subjects completed Crockett's Role Category Questionnaire, and wrote a persuasive letter in response to the problem, “Smoking and the School Nurse.” Letters were submitted to judges for impressionistic and attributional ratings. A content-analytic measure was applied to these 40 papers to yield a measure of the number and quality of persuasive strategies employed. Finally, the same papers were submitted to a second panel, who rated them for overall persuasiveness and appropriateness of tone. Results indicated a significant relationship between interpersonal cognitive complexity and abstractness and quality of writing, persuasiveness, appropriateness of tone, and level of persuasive strategy employed.