Comments: I would like to point out that in my points made at 1:35 pm yesterday to Bob Altemeyer, I should not have said "In your own words, those involve "unjust" leaders, not merely leaders."
It was in reference to Don Doumakes' interpretations of the book that authoritarianism involves unjust authorities, per posts he made on 9/9 (8:13 pm) and 9/10 (12:26 pm), yet upon closer examination I realized that while on pg. 2 Bob states,
"Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want--which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal.",
at the beginning of ch. 1 he also says,
"Because this book is called The Authoritarians, you may have thought it dealt with autocrats and despots, the kind of people who would rule their country, or department, or football team like a dictator. That is one meaning of the word, and yes, we shall talk about such people eventually in this book. But we shall begin with a second kind of authoritarian: someone who, because of his personality, submits by leaps and bows to his authorities."
At any rate, it should be pointed out that while my comment about unjust authorities involved with authoritarianism will necessarily apply to my discussion with Don, it should not have been mistakenly applied to my conversation with Bob Altemeyer, as the book does not necessarily claim authoritarianism always involves unjust authorities.
Don Doumakes
09/10/10
Comments: Joshua, I gather you have no counterexamples to offer.
Joshua Zambrano
09/10/10
Comments: Ultimately, even if the test did test for authoritarianism, that would not mean it wasn't also testing, possibly moreso, for things like Christian identity and conservatism. Yes, keywords like leader (3), authorities in government (5), and established (6) broach on authoritarianism and whether one should obey leaders.
I would argue however, that authoritarianism is not the primary underlying theme of the questions. As I previously stated, a simple rewording of what your correct answers would be produces the following:
3. It is wrong to oppose radical new changes and sinfulness. 4. It is wrong to oppose homosexuality. 5. One should not listen to authorities in government and religion but to those who defy them. 6. Atheists are as morally sound as regular church attendees. 7. It is wrong to support traditional values or oppose those viewed as "troublemakers spreading bad ideas". 8. Nudist camps are a bastion of American goodness. 9. Traditional beliefs are always wrong and should be opposed, even if it means quashing public opinion. 10. It is wrong to oppose "perversions eating away at our moral fiberand traditional beliefs." 11. Individuality for the sake of individuality's sake is to be prized when it comes to lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preference. 12. "Old-fashioned ways" and "old-fashioned values" are wrong at all times under all circumstances under all contexts. 13. Those who support abortion rights, animals right, and the abolition of school prayer should be viewed as admirable. 14. It is wrong to pine for a strong determined leader who will crush evil and get our country back on track. 15. It is right to challenge government, criticize religion, and ignore normative standards of society. 16. It is immoral to support God's laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage. 17. It is wrong to oppose radical immoral people trying to ruin the country for godless purposes and support intervention by the authorities. 18. It is wrong to believe a wife's submissiveness to her husband and related social conventions are anything but a thing of the past. 19. We should not honor the ways of our forefathers, do what authorities tell us, or get rid of bad people from society (NO to prisons!!!). 20. There are no moral absolutes, it's just what's right for an individual. Hitler was just following his own way and is a swell fellow. 21. It is wrong to support traditional family values. It is right to praise the bravery of homosexuals and feminists. 22. It is wrong to want troublemakers to shut up and think they should stick to their place in society (one of the few here I might actually agree with).
And I do not think that deals so much with authoritarianism as with Christian identity or conservatism.
If you truly wanted a test only testing for authoritarianism, why then do almost all questions deal with conservative/Christian beliefs?
Joshua Zambrano
09/10/10
Comments: To Bob Altemeyer: Yes, the timing is ironic, isn't it? I don't think I'm that similar to Doug T., but understand your concerns.
As for your points, I'll agree with your reference to pgs. 39-40 that the questions CAN touch on authoritarianism. Nevertheless, you could've used any other sentence with the words "must be strictly followed" as well, so why use that specific wording if not targeting Christians or conservatives?
Furthermore, just because one believes in strictly following commands, does not meet the requirements of authoritarianism. In your own words, those involve "unjust" leaders, not merely leaders. Yet most Christians would say the Bible is an example of a just authority, not an unjust one.
In essence, you are saying that the Bible and conservative leaders who oppose pornography, abortion, and homosexuality are examples of "unjust authorities", and that assumption is used in part as basis for your test. Obviously however, Christians and conservatives would disagree with that opinion.
I am still concerned about the underlying definition of prejudice beneath the test used to define injustice and which authorities are unjust. After all, the questions themselves grade as wrong those who merely oppose homosexuality (4), sinfulness (3), abortion and pornography (16), and nudist camps (8).
The definitions of injustice and prejudice you are using for this test is a decidedly liberal one which most would consider opinionated rather than fact-based.
I'm sure we can find some completely non-controversial examples of unjust authority, such as (for example) (as I said) government officials who commit crimes. If you think we can't agree about oh, say, torture, or starting a war of aggression, or spying on innocent citizens, then I'm sure we can still agree about burglarizing the offices of one's political opponents, or assassination, or genocide. It's a target-rich environment.
Quibbling about the definition of "unjust" is merely a distraction from your main problem, which is that you can't produce a counterexample. I challenge you (again) to find me a group of people, having a high average RWA, who actively resisted some criminal government official. Or, find me a group of people, having a LOW average RWA, who colluded with such an official, ignoring his criminality after it became public.
If you won't produce a counterexample, or even look for one, then you aren't here to talk about science.
Comments: To Joshua Zambrano: Hello, it's nice to meet you, assuming we have not met before. Unfortunately you have posted at a bad time, because you were preceded in recent days by another writer whom I have decided to henceforth ignore. So the possibility exists that you may be an alter-ego of Doug T., You are asking questions he might ask if he's gotten to Page 14 of The Authoritarians by now. I'm sorry to say this, because you may be the real deal, an independent critic who deserves replies. So I shall address your major points here. It's just that Doug T. is the first feisty, if mistaken, critic who has posted to this site in 3.8 years, and in the next week yet another one appears. Adding to the possibility of a two-headed troll is the fact that you seem to share a similar writing style with Doug T., a similar level of "tone" of engagement, you also seemingly have not grasped what I mean by right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism, and you also do not seem to have read much of the book yet.
I can illustrate this by addressing your first point about the "unfair, biased" wording of the items on the RWA scale. I gave my response to this possible criticism on pages 39-40 of the book. The relevant passages appear below. (All emphases are in the original text.)
"While we're on the subject of what the items on the RWA scale measure, people sometimes say, 'Of course conservatives (or religious conservatives) score highly on it; it's full of conservative ideas.' I think this does a disservice to 'conservative ideas' and to being 'religious.' Take Item 16: 'God's laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.' Knowing what you do about the concept of right-wing authoritarianism, you can pretty easily see the authoritarian submission ('God's laws...must be strictly followed'), the authoritarian aggression ('must be strongly punished'), and the run-away conventionalism in the underlying sentiment that everyone should be made to act the way someone's interpretation of God's law dictates. The item appears on the RWA scale because responses to it correlate strongly with responses to all the other items on the scale, which together tap these three defining elements of right-wing authoritarianism.
"On the other hand the item, 'Abortion, pornography and divorce are sins'--which you may agree reflects a conservative and religious point of view--would not make the cut for inclusion on the RWA scale because it does not ring the bells that identify a high RWA loudly enough. You could in fact sensibly agree with this item and still reject Item 16, could you not? Item 16 isn't just about being conservative and religious. It goes way beyond that.
"(My God! You're still reading this!) To put it another way, an empirical way: if you look at how responses to Item 16 correlate with the other items on the RWA scale, and then look at how it correlates with some measure of traditional religious belief, such as the Christian Orthodoxy scale that measures acceptance of the Nicene Creed (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1982, 21, pp. 317-326), you'll find the former correlations are much stronger. Item 16 does not measure time-honored, customary religious sentiment so much as it measures right-wing authoritarianism dressed up in sanctimonious clothes. The same is true of all the other religion items on the RWA scale, most of which came onto the RWA scale relatively recently as authoritarianism in North America increasingly became expressed in religious terms. Furthermore, these items all individually correlate with the authoritarian behaviors we shall be discussing later in this chapter.
Unless you think that conservatives (as opposed to authoritarian) are inclined to follow leaders no matter what, pitch out the Constitution, attack whomever a government targets, and so on--which I do not think--this too indicates that the items are not revealing conservatism, but authoritarianism."
(Back to Joshua Z.) Since this explanation is in the book, I would think you would begin your criticism of the items on the RWA scale by addressing the material above, not the way you did as if you'd never read this explanation of the reason items are worded the way they are. Why didn't you?
I think you'll find the answers to your other questions if you read the book. But maybe I should as well spell out something here about research that addresses your other major point: Why didn't Altemeyer study left-wingers? (And I thank Don Doumakes who tried to make a similar point with you.)
When you do a survey that correlates a test score with something else, you are studying the whole range of responses on the test, not just some part. So if we find that RWA scale scores correlate "sturdily" with ethnic and racial prejudice, it means that persons who score highly on the RWA scale tend to be more prejudiced than those who score low. If you turn that statement around, it means the low RWAs tend to be less prejudiced than the high scorers. The correlation tells you as much about low scorers on the RWA scale as highs. Since low scorers tend to be liberals, both in the general population and among politicians, and high scorers tend to be conservatives in such samples, almost all of the studies in The Authoritarians are as much about left-wingers as right-wingers. (There are a few studies of particular groups, such as atheists and persons who believe the Bible is without error and free of inconsistencies and contradictions.)
The finding about authoritarianism and prejudice, which goes back over 60 years in social psychology and is one of the things most consistently found by scores of researchers all over the place, raises the question again of your first point. If you think the RWA scale is actually measuring conservatism, then the finding means that conservatives tend to be among the most prejudiced people in society. I don't think that makes you feel better, but it's what lay at the end of the trail you want to walk down.
One can make this political case if one wants: When I asked legislators in six states (Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington) to answer the RWA scale and 12 items assessing hostility toward Jews, blacks, aboriginals, Asians, and so on, Republican lawmakers showed much more prejudice than Democrats in all six states. The overall correlation between party affiliation and prejudice was .53--a "sturdy" relationship. The same thing was found in Canada's House of Commons between lawmakers in a "socialist" caucus and those in a conservative one. (See The Authoritarian Specter, 1996, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Chapter 11.)
And if you really want to talk political liberalism vs. conservatism, you'd get the same direction of findings for almost all the studies in The Authoritarians. Again, I don't think you want to go there.
It's not where I was going. That was not my point or goal. Political party affiliation is not at the heart of the matter. The more important, underlying correlate is right-wing authoritarianism. Thus in the American study just mentioned, RWA scale scores correlated .71 overall with prejudice, which is a "very strong" relationship. (It was .62 in the Canadian study.) The real problem is not conservative politicians, but authoritarian ones. As I said in the 1996 book (p. 293), and in The Authoritarians, (p. 203) there are some high RWA Democrats, and some low RWA Republicans. But overall, the trend in politics per se is clear.
Regarding Doug T.: One visitor to this site wrote me privately three days ago, as follows:
You have got a troll.I really cannot tell from reading your posts how familiar you are with trolls, though you do mention that you frequent political blogs, so perhaps you have seen what they are capable of doing.If you have never been trolled before, I personally and sincerely do not want to see one attacking you.Just because Doug T. is illogical, incoherent, dishonest and incapable of understanding your research, does not mean that he cannot cause a great deal of unpleasantness for you, from starting worthless arguments that fill up the comments thread to getting your work and yourself treated extremely unfairly in a public forum.
I have had no experience with trolls, and perhaps Doug T. is one. But he seems pretty ineffectual, and he has a noteworthy ability to discredit himself. He’s also fighting a tide here because most of the people who read his postings are also reading The Authoritarians, and can spot his inaccuracies and misconceptions.
Doug T. is putting a lot of time into this website, and that’s time he could be spending doing some damage somewhere else. He may “fill up the comments thread,” and people can read what he says if they like. But they can also scroll right on by when they’ve had enough. It’s not like he’s using up paper, or keeping others from commenting.
So I plan to ignore him. He’s had plenty of time to answer the five questions I put him, and he still hasn’t gotten them all right—even using a word-search facility. (Ironically, my answers to the questions he asks are in the book, but I don’t think he’ll ever find them unless he reads it.)
Comments: To Seth: Thank you for your kind words, and especially for telling your friend about the book. That sort of thing makes my day.
As to whether high RWAs are more likely to be sports fanatics, I answer as a life-long St. Louis Cardinals fan, which one becomes just by drinking the water while growing up in St. Louis. No, I don't know any research on this subject. I'd predict RWAs' strong tendency toward in-group bias would make them susceptible to being particularly biased sports fans, and so you may hear more from high RWA sports fans than you do from the other fans, which can create an impression of a connection. But I think if you gave out the RWA scale to the adult crowds at Wrigley Field or Busch Stadium, you'd get a pretty ordinary average score overall. (Think there's any chance of that becoming an "attraction night" giveaway?) And you would get higher scores in some parts of the country than in others. But you'd find that at the supermarkets too.
Joshua Zambrano
09/10/10
Comments: Furthermore, I would point out that only 6% of scientists were Republican compared to 23% of the general public and 9% conservative compared to 37% of the general public, according to a 2009 study by the Pew Research Center.
This also held true for journalists according to a 2004 study where only 7% of the national press and 12% of the local press called themselves conservative as opposed to 33% of the general public.
According to OpenSecrets.org, the Education industry has historically given 73% to Democrats, and the Media industry 70% to Democrats.
My point is simply that if the media and education/science fields are underrepresented, it is in conservatism, and thus are more likely to demonize them. Therefore, one should be aware of this potential for bias, whether the bias is wittingly or unwittingly; and that whereas scientists might create false surveys demonizing conservatives the media will prove equally content to publicize them. Therefore, it's important to hold both accountable.
Joshua Zambrano
09/10/10
Comments: "The test purports to measure the tendency of people to submit to authority, which we all do, and should do, to some extent. A high score (it is claimed) indicates a willingness to submit to unjust authority. If the people with high scores tend to submit to unjust authority, then the test is valid, and 'valid' in this context means "it measures what it says it measures. You assert the test is not valid, and doesn't measure what it says it measures. You provide no data."
Yet who defines what an "unjust authority" is? Most Americans right now would put that label on Barack Obama, yet given what the test was composed of, I'm sure Mr. Altemeyer would disagree. As seen from the test questions, it would seem religions, governments, and those who criticize homosexual rights are themselves seen as the "unjust authorities" meaning it becomes a test of circular reasoning. "You're unjust because you submit to unjust authorities. Who is the unjust authority? Why you are of course."
You see, if the test is only focusing on one group - right-wing Christians and conservatives, but not, as can be plainly seen from the questions it uses, focusing equally on left-wing liberals and Atheists, then it could be ignoring the fact that this problem is not relegated merely to one side or the other but an issue of the broader humanity. And thus, unjustly scapegoating and demonizing one side that is no worse than the other.
Doug T.
09/09/10
Comments: Don,
As a hypothetical, let's say there is a leader - I'll call him Walt Brown - who runs for president as a Socialist in the USA. Let's also say that this hypothetical Walt Brown states he wants to use the Constitution as toilet paper. His desire is to abolish all property rights and enslaves the population into Socialism, as any good and proper Socialist would.
Are his ardent followers "right-wing authoritians"?
As even the evil dictator Fidel Castro admits - Socialism never has worked. Socialism has always failed and usually with disastrous consequences for the average citizen. We all understand this as a failed economic system which only the easily brain-washed could advocate.
Only the high RWA could be an ardent supporter for such a miserable economic system, eh?
Don Doumakes
09/09/10
Comments: Joshua,
The test purports to measure the tendency of people to submit to authority, which we all do, and should do, to some extent. A high score (it is claimed) indicates a willingness to submit to unjust authority. If the people with high scores tend to submit to unjust authority, then the test is valid, and "valid" in this context means "it measures what it says it measures."
You assert the test is not valid, and doesn't measure what it says it measures. You provide no data.
Dr. Altemeyer cites study after study after study in which people with high scores on the instrument, tend to submit to unjust authority, by (for example) supporting government officials who engaged in criminal activities. The results are replicated by multiple investigators, which is the gold standard in all science. Of course you know all this; you've read the book.
He's got data to back up his claims, you don't. This is why his argument is convincing, and yours is not---at least for now. You are welcome to bring some empirical facts to the table and change my mind. All it would take is to show me a group of people with a high average RWA who defied conventionality and resisted authority, in other words, who behaved entirely UNlike the high scorers described in the book.
It seems that everyone who disagrees with him needs to re-read his book... I have company in this boat...
"But also, one could read the rest of the book beyond Chapter 1, which is available on-line at www.theauthoritarians.com ."
"I suggested David read the rest of my book to get an idea of what has been found, but he said he won’t because he doesn’t trust my judgment."
Hey Bob, how about you answer the question?
Why not just call authoritarians "authoritarians" instead of your politically biased "right wing authoritarian" moniker?
Joshua Zambrano
09/09/10
Comments: In other words, just because his book might be out of whack due to a poorly created test, does not make him a bad guy. You'd be hard pressed to find another professor of such beliefs willing to discuss them as openly as he is. I don't like his methodology, but he seems like a decent human being.
Joshua Zambrano
09/09/10
Comments: While I must confess the possibility of that seemed highly unlikely when I first perused the book, the more I have seen of Bob Altemeyer in response to critics as seen here and in his reply to Mr. Friedman per this blog, the more I consider him genuinely sincere in his beliefs that the study is valid.
As I've shown, I STRONGLY disagree with using such a questionnaire as basis for the study, given its purely opinionated nature that does not survey what it's supposed to survey, yet neither do I think he's trying to lie or silence opposing views, which he seems to welcome. I do not see him trying to stifle criticism or attack those who question; which is why I am not more harsh in my criticism of his test.
Again, I can't help but wonder if perhaps he really does somehow not perceive the level of bias in the test, obvious, blatant even, as it seems of course to us.