Attitudes as syndromes

Lecture 9

Attitudes as syndromes

• Attitudes form a structure – attitudes are not independent of each other

• Attitudes can be predicted from other attitudes • The most frequently studied attitudinal syndroms:

authoritarianism, dogmatism, conservatism vs. liberalism, tough vs tender-mindedness

• How are content and formal properties of attitudes related?

Authoritarian personality

(1950)

Theodor Adorno Else Frenkel-Brunswik

1903-1969 1908-1958

Authoritarian personality

• Theodor Adorno, E. Frenkel Brunswik, D. Levinson, R. Sanford (1950): „Authoritarian personality”

• Dollard-Miller: agression as a consequence of frustration– Increase in ethnic prejudice in conditions of

economic deprivation– Number of lynchings on Blacks and price of cotton in

the South

• Theodor Adorno:psychoanalytic theory of a scape-goat

Frustration – agression hypothesis

History of research on authoritarianism

• Holocaust• Observation of prejudice against Jews in

America• Attitude scales:

– Antisemitism Scale (AS)– Ethnocentrism Scale (E)– Fascism scale (F)

Authoritarian Personality Syndrome (1)

• Conventionalism: rigid adherence to conventional. Middle-class values

• Authoritarian submission: submissive, uncritical attitude towards idealized moral authorities of the ingroup

• Authoritarian aggression: tendency to be on the lookout for, to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values

• Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded

• Superstition and stereotypy: The belief in the mystical determinants of the individual’s fate, the disposition to think in rigid categories

Authoritarian Personality Syndrome (2)

• Power and toughness: Preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with the power figures; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness

• Destructiveness and cynism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human

• Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on the world; the projection of unconscious emotional impulses

• Sexual repression: Exaggerated concern with sexual „goings on”

F scale (selected items)

• Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn

• If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off

• What that country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith

• Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severly punished

• War and social troubles may sometimes be ended by an earthquake or flood that will destroy the whole world

• The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it

Authoritarian syndrome (Theodor Adorno)

Values of lower middle class

Authoritarian upbrining

repressionIdentification with

The aggressor

antyintrojection projectionAuthoritarianaggression

Authoritariansubmission

Choice of scape goat – minority group

The scape-goat theory of prejudice

• Psychoanalytic explanations (prejudice as defensive mechanism)

• Clinical diagnostic tools (among others projective tests, interviews)

• Mechanisms of stereotypes in personality• Other representatives of Frankfurt school: H.

Marcuse, E. Fromm

Criticism of the „authoritarian personality” concept

• One-way questions (all affirmative)• Primitive formulations of items: higher

proportion of „yes” responses among low educated people

• The same items diagnostic of several traits• „right-wing” ideology, what about left-wing

authoritarianism?• Mechanisms of stereotyping and prejudice –

personality and not social• Psychoanalytic, „clinical” concept

Dogmatic personality

Milton Rokeach

(1918-1988)

Open and Closed Mind (1960)

Dogmatic personality: Milton Rokeach: Open and Closed Mind (1960)

• Cognitive, not psychoanalytic approach• Dogmatic beliefs independent of content (right-

wing and left-wing dogmatism)• Formal features of the belief system determine its

open or closed nature• Two functions of beliefs: cognitive and defensive• Dogmatism: prevalence of the defensive over

cognitive function

Open vs. Closed mind: description

• Belief vs. Disbelief system• Open vs. Closed mind

– Amount of information about targets of beliefs and disbeliefs: The more is known about accepted objects and the less about unaccepted objects – the more dogmatic system

– Homogeneity of the disbelief system: The more homogeneous, the more dogmatic system

– Perceived distance between the belief and the disbelief system: The greater distance, the more dogmatic system

Closed mind

Beliefs Disbeliefs

Amount information

Differentiation

Perceived distanceNumberopinions

A

D E F

CB

Open mind

Beliefs Disbeliefs

Amount information

Differentiation

Perceived distance

E

B

F D

C

G

A

Number opinions

Rokeach & Sherif

Latitude of acceptance

Latitude ofnoncommitment

Latitude ofrejectance

Nu

mb

er

of

op

inio

ns

High ego-involvement

Low ego-involvement

Other features of the closed mind

• Change of attitude – in line with the conversion model (180 degrees)

• Closed mind – focus on a narrow time perspective (only past, only present, only future)

• Underlying mechanism – anxiety

Closed mind and the „as if” atttitude

• Kurt Goldstein: concrete vs. abstract attitude– „abstract” attitude – ability to think in terms of the „as

if” categories

– „concrete” attitude – literal understanding, immersion in the concrete and palpable

– Understanding metaphors and abstract attitude

– Dogmatism – deficit of the abstract attitude

Authoritarian vs. dogmatic

dogmatic

authoritarian

Bob Altemeyer

The Authoritarian Specter

The Authoritarians (2006)

Bob Altemayer – Right Wing Authoritarianism (1996)

• New authoritarianism scale – 3 elements of syndrome– Conservatism

– Authoritarian agression

– Authoritarian submission

• Left wing authoritarianism – is it possible?

Right-wing authoritarianism (Bob Altenmayer)

Values of lower middle class

Authoritarian upbrining

repressionIdentification with

The aggressor

antyintrojection projectionAuthoritarianaggression

Authoritariansubmission

Choice of scape goat – minority group

RWA scale: Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale (selected items)

• Life imprisonment is justified for certain crimes

• It is important to protect the rights of radicals and deviants in all ways

• Gays and lesbians are as healthy and moral as everybody else

• Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at out moral fiber and traditional beliefs

• The real keys to the „good life” are obedience, discipline, and sticking to the straight and narrow

• There is absolutely nothing wrong with the nudist camps

Right or left-wing authoritarianism

• ?

Social Dominance Orientantion Theory (1999)

• Individual tendency to accept social hierarchy, to legitimize hierarchical social order

• Both RWA and SDO positive correlations with prejudice

James Sidanius

Felicia Pratto

RWA vs. SDO or dual model of prejudice

• RWA i SDO – two motivational schemas– RWA – motivation for control and group security –

focus on intragroup norms – SDO – motywacja for competion and dominance–

focus on intergroup comparisons

• Patriotism vs. nationalism– RWA – patriotic attitudes (affective attitude towards

country)– SDO – nationalistic attitudes (superioroty of own

country)

Silvan S. Tomkins1911-1991

Theory of ideological polarity

Silvan Tomkins: Theory of ideological polarity

• Basic distinction: relation between values and an individual– Right (normative orientation)

• Values autonomous and realistic status• Humans – instrumental with respect to values

– Left (humanistic orientation)• Values – relative and created by humans• Individual – autonomous value

• Reality objective or created?

Theory of ideological polarity

• Objective - subjective• Children upbringing• Role of the state/government• Science and epistemology:

– realism vs. constructvism

– Context of discovery vs context of justification

• Attitude towards punishment• General life attitudes

H.J. Eysenck: Beyond right and left

• Fascism and communism – two opposing points on one dimension?

• Similarities between extreme left and right• Need for second dimension

– Radicalism-conservatism

– Tough-mindedness vs. Tender-mindedness