ABSTRACT
The terms “interests” and “attitudes” in non-technical usage refer to rather similar concepts. Interests are attitudes having positive valences, or, to put it rather more simply, interests are attitudes held with respect to objects or classes of objects towards which we feel a certain attraction. Lack of interest is usually taken as an indication of a negative or unfavourable attitude; the man who is not interested in women may be regarded as being unfavourably disposed towards them. This simple manner of looking at these two concepts leaves out of account all the complications introduced by such factors as ambivalence, or reaction formation; it is also out of line with the way in which “interest” and “attitude” are being used in contemporary psychology. The former refers almost exclusively to vocational or occupational preferences; the latter to opinions held on social or political matters. The older term “sentiment”, introduced by McDougall (1923) to cover this whole area of affective and conative constellations around some central idea, has gone out of fashion; it might perhaps with some advantage be revived to denote what the more recent terms have in common. In the absence of such a unifying term, or of any unified treatment of the data derived from investigations of occupational and socio-political preferences, we must discuss interests and attitudes separately.
