Sense of Entitlement:

Implications in the Classroom

of a Consumer Attitude
toward Education

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Entitlement: where we are

 Defined: “expectancy of success

without responsibility”
 Chronology:
 Scale development, 2002-2004
 Vignettes, spring 2005
 Validation, fall 2005

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“SENT” scale development
 2002
 Generation of items
 Factor analysis
 2004
 Rewording items
 Open-ended vignettes
 2005
 Vignette response selection
 Vignette data collection
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PCA
 Component 1: entitlement
 11 items
 Alpha = .760 (FA05), .818 (SP05)

 Component 2: approach
 4 items
 Alpha = .770 (FA05), .808 (SP05)
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 Vignette measure

In a humanities course, the professor regularly discusses

material not in the assigned readings. As you are taking
the midterm, you realize that several of the questions are
not from the textbook (which you studied). While it was
likely covered in class, you studied only the assigned
readings and thus will not perform as well as you had
expected on this exam.

In this situation, how likely is it that you would make the

following statements/thoughts?

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 Vignette measure
 That is stupid. The “teacher” should be upfront on
whether they will teach from the book or not and
they should tell you what will be on the tests.

 It is difficult to try to decide what is trivial FYI

material in most lectures. The testable material
should come from a reliable textbook source
only.

 I would complain to the professor who misled me!

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 Available data – Spring 2005
 Vignettes and responses
 Likelihood and appropriateness ratings
 Consensus of ‘appropriateness’ from
expert raters

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 Subject-matter experts
 21 instructors & professors, 1 to 37 years
teaching experience
 0 (Highly Inappropriate) to 5 (Highly appropriate)
 Selection of appropriate and inappropriate
vignette responses
 Inappropriate <1.00 (18 items); appropriate >4.00 (22
items)
 Alpha Reliability of .808 (Appropriate) and .856
(Inappropriate)
 PCA eigenvalues of 5.347 (Appropriate) and 4.627
(Inappropriate)
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 Variables of interest
 SENT – Entitlement
 SENT – Approach
 Psychological Entitlement Scale
 Conscientiousness
 Likelihood rating of appropriate items
 Appropriateness rating of appropriate items
 Likelihood rating of inappropriate items
 Appropriateness rating of inappropriate items 9
 Predicting Appropriate Responses

 Likelihood of appropriate items

 = 1.047 + .118 (Con) + .662 (Appropriateness) + e
 R² = .477, F = 146.241, p < .001
 Likelihood of appropriate items
 = 3.554 + .154 (Con) - .252 (Sent) + e
 R² = .100, F = 18.457, p < .001
 Appropriateness of appropriate items
 = 4.305 - .342 (Sent) + e
 R² = .117, F = 43.276, p < .001
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 Predicting Inappropriate Responses

 Likelihood of inappropriate items

 = .827 + .285 (Sent) + .570 (Appropriateness) + e
 R² = .626, F = 272.494, p <.001
 Likelihood of inappropriate items
 = 1.355 + .667(Sent) + e
 R² = .444, F = 274.977, p <.001
 Appropriateness of inappropriate items
 = .819 +.665 (Sent) + .109 (Approach) + e
 R² = .462, F = 141.843, p <.001

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Mediation: Inappropriate Items

Appropriateness
rating
.558 .506

SENT
Likelihood of
inappropriate
.667
items

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Mediation: Appropriate items

Appropriateness
rating
-.203 .590

SENT
Likelihood of
appropriate
-.140
items

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 Correlates: Academic

 Academic Self-Efficacy (Paulhus, 1983)

 Contingencies of Self-Worth (Crocker,
2003)
 Academic, Competitive, Others’
Approval
 Strategic Flexibility (Cantwell & Moore, 1996)

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 Correlates: Self-Focus
 Fear of Negative Evaluation (Leary, 1983)
 Self-Consciousness (Scheier & Carver, 1985)
 Public S-C, Social Anxiety, and Private S-C
 Self-Reflectiveness, Internal State Awareness
 Levels of Self-Criticism Scale
 Self-Esteem (Rosenberg, 1989)

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 Correlates: Personality
 Balanced Inventory of Desirable
Responding
 Big Five Inventory
 Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Neuroticism

 Narcissistic Personality Inventory

 Psychological Entitlement Scale 16
 Correlates: Academic Threat
 Self-Handicapping (Jones & Berglas, 1978)
 Imposter Phenomenon (Clance, 1985)
 Defensive Pessimism (Norem & Cantor, 1986;
Norem, 2001)

 Subjective Overachievement (Oleson et al.,

2000)

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 Fall 2005 Analyses
 Potential “correlates” from prescreening
and data collection
 Test-retest sense of entitlement scale
 Looking ahead: behavioral validations?

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 Consumer Attitudes?
 How to name the scale?
 Focuses on academic domain as opposed
to more general entitlement
 Not just domain-specific PES-entitlement
 Perhaps something special about consumer-

based attitudes
 Why are these attitudes more related to
negative reactions to academic situations
than PES entitlement? 19
Entitlement Testimonials
I have a question regarding the Application
Assignment #2.  Whoever graded mine gave me a
ninety, and said that marijuana should have been in
the hallucinogen category.  Now seeing as how this
TA has probably never smoked a joint before, I find
it hard for him/her to have the ability to tell me (one
who used to smoke marijuana daily) that pot is a
hallucinogen!  Not once did I ever hallucinate from
smoking marijuana.  So please inform KB, whoever
that is, that he/she needs to smoke a joint before
counting off on my paper. 20