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Journal o Personality and Social Psychology1 9 7 3 , Vo l . 25 , No . 2 , 286-288

CONSERVATISM AND ART PREFERENCES

GLENN D . WILSON,2

Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, England

J A M E S A U S M A N A N D T H O M A S R . M AT H E W S

California State University, Los Angeles

Starting with the proposit ion that a generalized f ea r o f uncer ta in ty is thepsychological var iable which accounts for the organiza t ion o f social attitudesalong a general fac to r of l iberalism-conservatism, i t was hypothesized thatconservatives would express an aversion to highly complex and abstract artworks. Twenty paintings were chosen by an art expert , five to represent eacho f f ou r categories differing in degree of uncertainty: s imple representational,simple abstract , complex representational, and complex abstract. A s predicted,high scorers on the Conservatism Scale p refer red paintings in the simplerepresentational category and showed a definite dislike of the complex repre-sentational and complex abstract works, while l iberals p refer red the morecomplex and abstract paintings. It was f u r t he r demons t ra ted t ha t the com-plexity dimension was the primary discriminator of the j udgments of liberalsand conservatives r .S6, p < .01) rather than abstraction r= .14, ns).

Studies in several cultures have confirmedth e importance o f a general factor, best de-scribed as conservatism, underlying th e entirefield o f social attitudes (Bagley, Wilson, &Boshier, 1970; Schneider & M i n k m a r, 1 9 7 2 ;Wilson, 1970). T he ideal conservative ischaracterized as conventional, conforming,antihedonistic, authoritarian, punitive, ethno-centric, militaristic, dogmatic, superstit ious,and antiscientific. There is evidence that un-der normal conditions this syndrome is trans-mit ted f rom parent to child, bu t theorieswhich stress developmental factors, such asimitation learning and identification, fail toaccount for the constellation itself; tha t is,

they do not explain how atti tudes came to beorganized this way in the f irst place.One theory of the organization of this syn-

drome holds t ha t th e psychological basis o fconservative atti tudes is a generalized sus-ceptibility to feeling th rea t or anxiety in theface o f unce rtainty (e.g. , am biguity, complex-ity, change, novelty, deviance, individuality,

This experiment was conducted whi le the first

au th o r was vis i t ing professor a t California State

Univers i ty, Los Angeles .Thanks are due to Brian Allison, D e p a r t m e n t o fA rt Edu cat ion, Leeds Polytechnic , for the selectiono f paintings.

2 Reques ts f o r reprints should be sent to GlennD. Wilson, Institute of Psychiatry, De CrespignyPark, Denmark Hill, London S. E. 5, England.

ano mie ) . In this view, th e tendency for theconservative person to subjugate h is innerneeds and feelings to the social order (Wilson& Pat terson, 1969) is interpreted as a meanso f reduc ing choice (response uncer ta in ty) ,thus s implifying th e cognitive world. Mos tdiscussions of the dynamics of conservatismconcentrate on the response phase of behaviorand neglect to explore the possibility tha ts t imulus unce rta inty ( in the inform ationtheory sense) may be equally aversive to theextreme conservative. This s tudy w as designedto test this proposition in the context of es-thetic preferences, using paintings tha t d i f f e ra priori in their amount o f complexity and

abstraction.M E T H O D

Twenty paintings were selected by an art expert ,five to represent each o f f o u r categories: simplerepresentat ional , simple abstract, complex representa-t ional and complex abstract . The two dimensions ofart involved in this fo ur -w ay classification were con-ceptual ized as independent. Simplicity-complexityrefer red to the n u m b e r and concentration of dif-fe ren t elements (lines, shapes, colors, objects, etc.)conta ined wi th in th e pa int ing. T he abstract-repre-sentational dimension concerned the extent to whichelements were familiar and identifiable and the de-gree to which the whole picture showed isomorphism(cor respondence) with visual reality. It is relevantto note t ha t whereas th e latter dimension is in-evitably related to the traditional-mod ern distinc-tion, the former was intended to be completelyindependent of bo th .

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C O N S E R VAT I S M A N D A R T PREFERENCES 287

The sub jec t s were 16 females and 14 males agedb e tw e e n 23 and 34 yea r s . It has previously beenestabl ished that conservat ism scores are little affectedby age or sex within this age range (Wilson &Pat terson , 1968). T o minimize socia l effects, th esubjects were tes ted individual ly in t he i r ow n homes ,the art p r e f e r e n c e s test be ing p resen ted as a seriesof s l ides with a h a n d v i e we r. T he s u b j e c t w as askedto rate each pic ture according to his personal p r e f e r -ences, by se lec t ing one of the fo l lowing s ta tementsf rom a 7 -po in t scale: dislike extremely (1), dislikemo dera te ly (2 ) , d i sl ike s l igh t ly (3 ) , ind i ffe ren t ( 4 ) ,l ike s l ight ly (5 ) , l ike mo dera te ly (6 ) , l ike extreme ly( 7 ) . The 20 s l ides were presented in a f ixed, cyclico rde r, a f t e r which the Conservat ism Scale (Wilson& Patterson, 1970) w as administered. The two taskswe r e t aken in th is order because i t was felt thatC scores were less l ike ly to be in f luenced by the artjudgm en ts than v ice -ve r sa.

The Wi l son-Pa t t e r son C Scale d i ffe rs f rom m o s tcu r ren t attitude scales not so m uch in its contentas in its s implified i tem f o r m a t . T he prepositionals ta temen ts of t radi t ional quest ionnaires such as theCali fornia F Scale and Rokeach Dogmatism Scaleare replaced by b r ie f , nond i rec t iona l catchphrasesrepresenting a variety of controversial issues (e.g.,dea th pen a l ty, evo lu t ion theo ry, l ega li zed abor t ion ,Bib le t ru th , pa t r io t i sm) . T he r e sponden t ind ica te swh i c h of these he f a v o r s or be l ieves in by choosingone o f t h ree r e sponse a l t e rna t ives : yes , ? , o r no . This new i tem fo rm a t has been shown togive re la t ive f r eedom f rom th e effects of acquiescence( C l o u d & Va u g h a n , 1969) and socia l des i rabi l i ty.T he C scale has been shown to mainta in h igh re l i -ab i l i ty in seve ra l Eu ropean cu l tu res Eng land ,New Zealand, The Nether lands , Ge r ma n y, and SouthAfr ica (Open & Ro denw old t , in p re ss ; Schne ide r M i n k m a r , 1 9 7 2 ; Wi l son & Pa t t e r son , 197 0) , andthe re is subs tan t i a l ev idence to s u p p o r t it s c o n s t r u c tval id i ty (e .g . , Caine & Le igh , 1972 ; Pa t t e r son &Wilson, 1969; Thomas, Shea, & Rigby, 1971; Wilson,1 9 7 3 ) .

C O N S E RV T I V E S

SIMPLE SI MPLE C O M P L E X COMPLEX

R E P R E S E N T T I O N B S T R C T R E P R E S E N T T I O N B S T R C T

T Y P E Of RT

F I G . 1 . M ean ra t ing s on the f o u r art categoriesfor l iberals and conse rva t ives . (The f o u r t ypes o far t a re arranged on an a pr ior i sca le of s t imulusuncer ta in ty. )

RESULTS

C scores ranged f rom 11 to 57 w i th amedian of 36.S. Splitt ing the 30 subjects at

th e median C score gave tw o groups whichwere labeled liberal and conservative.Mean ra t ings for the four styles of art quad-rants are shown for each of these tw o groupsin F igure 1 . Using t tests, th e d ifferencesbetween liberals and conservatives were sig-nificant beyond th e .O S level for eachcategory except simple abstract, where thedifference was not significant. P roduc t -m o m e n t correlations between conservatismscores and the f o u r art categories were:simple representational .22, ns; simple ab-stract .26, ns; complex representational .S3, p < .01; complex abstract .35,p < .05.

There a re three points to note here: (a)There was a general tendency for the con-servatives to p refer simple and representa-tional paintings while the liberals preferredth e complex and abstract , b) T he simple-complex d imension apparent ly discr iminated

th e liberals and conservatives more stronglythan the abstract-representational dimension. c) The ratings of the conservatives on thecomplex paint ings are clearly on the negativeside of the indifference point; that is , theyare actively disliked, not just p referred lessthan other types. This discovery is particu-larly interesting when it is considered thatthe conservative group, with scores rangingfrom 37 to 57 on the C Scale, is actuallyfairly liberal by comparison to the generalpopulation, which has a mean of about SO .

In order to test th e validity of the observa-tion concerning th e relative importance ofth e two ar t dimensions in distinguishing th econservative and liberal groups, a f u r the ranalysis w as conducted. A complexity scorew as calculated for each subject by adding h isratings on the two complex categories andsubtracting his ratings on the two simplecategories (complex representational pluscomplex abstract minus simple representa-tional minus simple abstract). A n abstract-ness score was similarly calculated (simpleabstract plus complex abstract minus simplerepresentational minus complex representa-t ional). These scores, being within-subjects

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288 G. W I L S O N , J. A U S M A N , AND T. M A T H E W S

measures , have the advantage o f par t ly cor-recting f or between-subjects differences inoverall rat ing level . Correlat ions o f thesecomplexity and abstractness scores with con-servatism were . 56 p < .01) and .14 ns), respectively, thus clearly establishingthat the comp lexity-simplici ty dim ensio n inthe paintings is the p r imary d iscr iminator ofthe j u d g me n t s of the l iberals and conserva-tives. The correlat ion between the two artdimensions themselves w as .07, supporting thepresumption o f independence between them.Because i t was supposed that th e differencesbetween l iberals and conservatives on the

complexity-simplici ty dimension might beeven more s t r ik ing where all the st imuli aremeaningful (i.e., representa t ional) , complexrepresentational-simple representational scoreswere calculated for each subject. Thist ime the correlation with conservatism roseto .65.

Finally, it is w orth noting that n either agenor sex were significantly related to con-servatism or any other variables investigated.

D I S C U S S I O N

If a difference between l iberals and con-servatives had appeared only for the ab-stract-representational dimen sion, this m ighthave been regarded as tautological and trivialconsidering the high conceptual relat ionshipbetween abstractness and modernism. As i ttu rned out , however, i t was the complexityfac tor that was the primary discriminatorof the groups, suggesting tha t this may bethe more fu nd am en tal psychological an te-cedent of conservatism as a d imension of per-sonality. These results may be in te rp re ted asprovid ing suppor t for the theory that con-servatism represents a reaction against un -certainty, whether it be in te rms of the a l ter-natives in action tha t are available, or merelycomplexity and am bigui ty in the environm entto which the individual is exposed. Appar-ently, th e extreme conservative perceives th e

world as falling apart, which leads him to

seek and p lace va lue upon order, s implici ty,and securi ty.

These results are also seen as providingfu r the r construct validation of the C Scale.Although i t is widely used in Britain andth e Commonwealth, this is one of the firststudies to use the test with a United Statessample, and the fac t t ha t a median spli t ofonly 30 subjects yielded significant resul tssuggests that it may have considerablepredictive power.

REFERENCES

B A G L E Y , C. R., WILSON, G. D., & B O S H I E R , R. TheConservat ism Scale: A fac tor s tru ctur e com parisonof English, Dutch, and New Zealand samples.Journal of Social Psychology, 1970, 81, 267-268.

C A I N E , T. M., & LEIGH, R . Conservat ism in relationto psychia t r ic t rea tment . British Journal of Socialand Clinical Psychology, 1972 , 11, 52-56.

C L O U D , J., & V A U G H A N , G. M. Using balanced scalesto control acquiescence. Sociometry, 1969, 33 ,193-202.

O R P E N , C ., & R O D E N W O L D T , H. The Wilson-PattersonConservatism Scale in a conserva t ive culture.British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,in press.

P A T T E R S O N , J. R ., & WILSON, G . D. Anonymi tyoccupa t ion and conservat ism. Journal of SocialPsychology, 1969, 78, 263-266 .

SCHNEIDER, J., & MINKMAR, H . Deutsche n e u k o n -s t ruk t ion e iner Konservat ismus-skala . Diagnostica,in press.

THOMAS, D . R., S H E A , J. D ., & RICBY, R . G. C o n -servatism an d response to sexua l humour. BritishJournal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 1971,10, 185-186.

WILSON, G. D. Is there a genera l fac tor in socialat t i tudes? Evidence f r o m a factor-analysis of theConservat ism Scale. British Journal of Social and

Clinical Psychology, 1970, 9 , 101-107.WILSON, G. D. The psychology of conservatism.L o n d o n : A c a d e m i c Press, 1973 .

WILSON, G . D ., & P A T T E R S O N , J . R. A new measureof conservat ism. British Journal of Social an dClinical Psychology, 1968, 7, 264-269.

WILSON, G . D., & P A T T E R S O N , J. R. Conservatism asa predictor of humor preferences. Journal of Con-sulting an d Clinical Psychology, 1969, 33, 271-274 .

WILSON, G . D., & P A T T E R S O N , J . R. Manual forth e Conservatism Scale. N.F.E.R. Publishing Co .,Windsor, England, 1970.

(Received October 25, 1971)