Question

A group of young women from wealthy, politically conservative families attends a small college located in a rural area. Due to this small size and isolated location, students have a great deal of interaction with faculty at the school. Most of the faculty have very liberal political views. According to research discussed in the text, if the students treat the college faculty as a reference group, which of the following should be most likely to happen?

A. As time passes, the students should develop more conservative political views.
B. Relative to peers from home who did not attend this school, the students should be more likely to be friends with and marry politically conservative people.
C. As time passes, the students should develop more liberal political views.
D. None of the above should happen.

Answer 1

C. As time passes, the students should develop more liberal political views.

Step-by-step explanation:

In social sciences, the term "reference group" may be defined as the collection or group of people whom we use as the standard of comparison with ourselves. We tend to rely on them to understand and interpret the social norms, which shape our views, our understanding of something.

In the context, when a group of young women attends a small college in an isolated and small rural area, they spend much time interacting with their faculties whom they treat as the "reference group". These faculties have a very liberal views on politics. Thus as time passes, these group of young students will also develop liberal political views after getting influenced by the reference group.