Personal epistemology and personal experience

The world view of students was investigated by measuring covert causal assumptions about the relationship between the person and physical and social reality. The Attitudes About Reality Scale was designed to measure a philosophical dimension ranging between a belief in social constructionism and a belief in logical positivism. These personal epistemologies are related to demographic markers such as religion and birth order, and to experiential variables such as age and sociopolitical identification. Personal epistemology may predispose individuals to seek courses with a content that is consonant with their preexistent ideology. Epistemological position, however, appears changed only slightly by exposure to courses whose paradigmatic focus emphasizes a particular relationship between the person and reality. Psychologists are becoming increasingly aware that the pursuit of knowledge is not value free. Personal experience can sensitize people to different aspects of problems and leads some to question the assumptions taken as selfevident by others lacking such experience. Correspondingly, demographic variables—seen as biographical markers of differential experience—are significantly correlated with personal epistemology. Personal epistemology may serve as one of the mechanisms by which past circumstances influence present judgments. The relationship between personal epistemology and personal experience is probably a reflexive one. Although the past influences the present, the past may also be reconstructed by present experience and new social identities. Such changes are marked by changes in personal epistemology.

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