Attitudes as syndromes

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Attitudes as syndromes

• Lecture 9

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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?

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Authoritarian personality (1950)
Theodor Adorno Else Frenkel-Brunswik
1903-1969
1908-1958
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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 Adornopsychoanalytic theory of a
  scape-goat

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Frustration agression hypothesis
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History of research on authoritarianism

• Holocaust
• Observation of prejudice against Jews in America
• Attitude scales
• Antisemitism Scale (AS)
• Ethnocentrism Scale (E)
• Fascism scale (F)

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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 individuals fate,
  the disposition to think in rigid categories

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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

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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

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Authoritarian syndrome (Theodor Adorno)
Values of lower middle class
Authoritarian upbrining
repression
Identification with The aggressor
Authoritarian aggression
Authoritarian submission
antyintrojection
projection
Choice of scape goat minority group
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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

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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

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Dogmatic personality
Open and Closed Mind (1960)
Milton Rokeach (1918-1988)
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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

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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

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Closed mind
Beliefs
Disbeliefs
Amount information
B
A
C
Differentiation
D
E
F
Perceived distance
Number opinions
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Open mind
Beliefs
Disbeliefs
Amount information
A
B
C
Differentiation
E
D
F
G
Perceived distance
Number opinions
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Rokeach Sherif
High ego-involvement
Low ego-involvement
Number of opinions
Latitude of acceptance
Latitude of noncommitment
Latitude of rejectance
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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

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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

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Authoritarian vs. dogmatic
dogmatic
authoritarian
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Bob Altemeyer

• The Authoritarian Specter
• The Authoritarians (2006)

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Bob Altemayer Right Wing Authoritarianism (1996)

• New authoritarianism scale 3 elements of
  syndrome
• Conservatism
• Authoritarian agression
• Authoritarian submission
• Left wing authoritarianism is it possible?

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Right-wing authoritarianism (Bob Altenmayer)
Values of lower middle class
Authoritarian upbrining
repression
Identification with The aggressor
Authoritarian aggression
Authoritarian submission
antyintrojection
projection
Choice of scape goat minority group
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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

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Right or left-wing authoritarianism

• ?

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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
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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)

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Silvan S. Tomkins
1911-1991
Theory of ideological polarity
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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?

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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

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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

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