Authoritarianism and attitudes toward the Vietnam war as reflected in behavioral and self-report measures.

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that authoritarianism as measured by the California F Scale would be related to both behavioral and self-report measures of subjects' attitudes toward United States involvement in the Vietnam war. In a test of the hypothesis, the F scale and a self-report questionnaire pertaining to the Vietnam war were administered to 131 introductory psychology students. Sixty-five of these students actively demonstrated against United States involvement in the Vietnam war by not attending class on the day of the October 15, 1969 moratorium on the Vietnam war. In support of the hypothesis, these 65 students had significantly lower F-scale scores and had stronger anti-Vietnam war attitudes, as reflected in the self-report questionnaire. Karabenick and Wilson (1969), contrary to prediction, found that dogmatism as measured by Rokeach's (1960) Dogmatism scale was significantly related to subjects' attitudes to the Vietnam war. Specifically, they found that subjects with anti-Vietnam war attitudes were significantly less dogmatic than subjects with pro-Vietnam war attitudes. These results are consistent with those of Barker (1963), who found that persons holding right-wing attitudes are more dogmatic than those holding left-wing attitudes, and those of Guller and Bailes (1968), who also found a significant positive correlation between Dogmatism scale scores and attitudes toward the Vietnam war.Karabenick and Wilson attempted to resolve the inconsistency between their hypothesis and results by pointing out that the Dogmatism scale and authoritarianism as measured by the California F Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950) are highly correlated (Rokeach, 1960), and by conceiving of pro-Vietnam war attitudes as corresponding to official government position and anti-Vietnam war attitudes as constituting a break with authority. Thus, Karabenick and Wilson suggest that persons high on the Dogmatism scale would also be high on the F scale and hence hold attitudes consistent with those in authority-namely pro-American involvement in Southeast Asia.

The Psychology of Politics

“…Similarly, authoritarians tested during the loyalty-oath controversy at the University of California were shown to favor such oaths for faculty members (Handlon & Squier, 1955). Support for constituted authority also was shown in attitudes toward the Vietnam war (Izzett, 1971;Granberg & Corrigan, 1971). Opposition to socialized medicine is another of the many consistent correlates of authoritarian ideology as measured by the F-Scale (Mahler, 1953).…”

Group domination and inequality in context: evidence for the unstable meanings of social dominance and authoritarianism

“…For instance, SDO is related to support for U.S. action in the 1991 Gulf War (Pratto et al, 1994;Sidanius & Liu, 1992), and the recent U.S.-led war against Iraq (McFarland, 2005). Moreover, authoritarianism correlated with support for U.S. action in the Vietnam War (Izzett, 1971), the 1991 Persian Gulf War (Doty, Winter, Peterson, & Kemmelmeier, 1997;Duncan & Stewart, 1995), and the recent U.S.-led war against Iraq (McFarland, 2005). This evidence could be interpreted as supporting a generalized influence of SDO and RWA on support for wars targeting lower status groups.…”

Comparing the perceived causes of the second Iraq war: a network analysis approach

“…Green et al [2003], for example, found that perceptions of the causes of loneliness were not related to levels of extraversion. Previous research has suggested that understanding about the causes and justice of a war maybe affected by holding authoritarian beliefs [Doty et al, 1997;Izzet, 1971]; hence, we might expect differences between high and low authoritarians in their representations of September 11th. Reser and Muncer [2004] found, however, that there were no simple effects of either right-wing authoritarian attitude or just world beliefs.…”