General Conservatism Research Articles

ATTITUDES AND STEREOTYPES ABOUT ATTITUDES ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

In the first of two telephone-survey studies, factor analysis of the attitudes of 159 respondents revealed a general conservatism factor and two forms of liberalism, traditional and radical. Conservatism increased with age, traditional liberalism was strongest in women and middleaged persons, and radical liberalism was stronger in men and decreased with age. In the second study, 240 respondents estimated the attitudes of a young, middle-aged, or old male or female target. Evidence of an “old-is-conservative” stereotype was clearest among young participants. Among old participants, the stereotype was evident only when the target was male. People associated traditional liberalism more with women than with men and radical liberalism more with men than with women. Both kinds of liberalism were expected to decrease with age. The authors conclude that age plays as important a role as gender in the attitude impressions people form during initial encounters.

Conservatism and attitude towards Christianity

Abstract The present aim was to locate the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity within Wilson's model of conservatism. Two hundred and six (78 males, 128 females) UK adults completed the Francis Scale and the Wilson–Patterson Attitude Inventory. For both males and females, scores on the Francis Scale were significantly associated with the Conservatism sub-scale scores of Idealism, Religious–Puritanism, Anti-Hedonism and General Conservatism. However, no significant association was found between the Francis Scale and the Conservatism sub-scale scores of Militarism-Punitiveness and Ethnocentrism-Intolerance. These data provide further evidence of the close association between religiosity and conservatism and provide further evidence for the convergent validity of the Francis Scale.

Comparing the biological and cultural inheritance of personality and social attitudes in the Virginia 30 000 study of twins and their relatives

AbstractMeasures of four dimensions of personality (Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Lie scores) and six aspects of social attitudes (to sex, taxation, militarism, politics, religion and a general conservatism scale) were obtained by mailed questionnaire from 29 691 US subjects including adult twins (n = 14 761) their parents (n = 2360), their spouses (n = 4391), siblings (n = 3184) and adult children (n = 4800). After correction for the average effects of age, sex and source of sample, familial correlations were computed for 80 distinct biological and social relationships. The data allow for the estimation of the additive and non-additive effects of genes, assortative mating, vertical cultural inheritance and other non-parental effects of the shared environment on differences in personality and social attitudes. The interaction of genetic and environmental effects with sex may also be analyzed. Model-fitting analyses show that personality and social attitude measures differ markedly in major features of family resemblance. Additive and dominant genetic effects contribute to differences in both personality and attitudes, but the effects of the family environment, including vertical cultural transmission from parent to child, are much more marked for social attitudes than for personality. There is substantial assortative mating for social attitudes and almost none for personality. The causes of family resemblance depend significantly on sex for almost every variable studied. These findings clarify and extend the more tentative findings derived from previous twin, family and adoption studies.

Gender and Politics under the Palestinian Authority

After setting out the main analytical approaches to evaluating women's status, the article assesses the situation of women under the Palestinian Authority (PA) in two main areas: representation in "state" institutions and the law (formal, customary, and shari'a). The work of the women's nongovernmental organizations is surveyed, particularly their campaigns for legal literacy and women's electoral participation. The article concludes that the situation of women has advanced little, because of a number of structural impediments, including a general conservatism in society (including among women's groups) and the characteristics of the PA.

Feeding Habits and Reproductive Biology of Australian Pygopodid Lizards of the Genus Aprasia

We dissected 615 preserved specimens of eight species of wormlike burrowing pygopodid lizards of the genus Aprasia, to document the basic natural history of this poorly known Australian taxon. Females grow larger than males but are less common in museum collections. At least four species were found to be oviparous, with each female producing two eggs per clutch. Reproductive cycles of both sexes are highly seasonal in A. pulchella and A. repens (with oviposition in summer) but apparently aseasonal in A. striolata. The diet of Aprasia consists almost entirely (>95%) of the larvae and pupae of ants of several genera. Aprasia consume large numbers of prey items in a single meal but may feed only infrequently and only in warmer months of the year. Larger A. repens consumed larger prey, but there was no evidence of sex-based differences in prey type or prey size despite the presence of significant dentitional dimorphism in this species. Overall, our data emphasizes the remarkable diversity of dietary habits within the pygopodid lizards, especially relative to the general conservatism of other gekkotan lizards in this regard. In several significant features of their morphology and trophic ecology, Aprasia are more similar to sympatric typhlopid snakes than they are to confamilial lizards.

Personality and attitudes towards current political topics

We presented a representative list of 162 political issues currently discussed in Germany and the German NEO-FFI to 184 subjects (45% university students). Principal components analysis of the attitude items reveals four factors which are interpreted as (1) general conservatism, preference for authoritarian punitiveness, (2) social welfare and support of women's equality, (3) liberalism and affirmation of technological progress, and (4) affirmation of increase in taxation for environmental protection and the development of East Europe. The first unrotated factor is identified as general conservatism. The analysis of zero and higher order correlations shows meaningful relationships between political attitudes and personality dimensions. The highest (negative) correlations are found between openness to experience and conservatism. Age and sex effects on political attitudes are reported.

Racism and Support of Free-Market Capitalism: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

We examined the interrelationship between people's support of market capitalism and their levels of racism, using moderately large samples in the United States and Sweden. Statistically significant and positive correlations were found between these variables within both samples. This relationship was analyzed within the framework of three alternative models of social attitudes: general conservatism theory, the gender-gap hypothesis, and social dominance theory. Although there was partial support for the general conservatism model, the data were found to be least consistent with the gender-gap hypothesis and most consistent with social dominance theory.

Nature, nurture, and conservatism in the Australian Twin Study.

Church attendance, educational level, and six conservatism scales were the subject of a multivariate behavior-genetic analysis by Truett et al. (Behav. Genet. 22, 43-62, 1992), based on responses from a large sample of adult Australian twins. These data are here analyzed in a different way to elicit general conservatism factors in the genetic, shared environmental, and unshared environmental covariation. The general genetic factor appears mainly to reflect intellectual sophistication; the general environmental factors, religious affiliation. These factors are similar, although not identical, for men and women.

Development of a Short-Form Conservatism Scale Suitable for Mail Surveys

Analysis of data from 255 U.S. pharmacists provides support for the consistency and validity of this short-form conservatism scale. The scale returned a coefficient alpha of 0.82, and principal components analysis yielded a strong general conservatism factor. Varimax rotation produced five factors consistent with the factor structure of the original Conservatism Scale.

The Gulf War and the Rodney King Beating: Implications of the General Conservatism and Social Dominance Perspectives

Abstract Both general conservatism and social dominance theory require relatively strong and significant relationships among indicators of racism, support for the Persian Gulf War, and approval of police actions in the Rodney King incident. With a nonprobability sample of 131 adults from Los Angeles, significant relationships were found among these variables as predicted by both theories. However, structural equation analysis disclosed that only social dominance theory was able to give a fully acceptable account of the entire matrix of correlations among the background and attitudinal variables involved. The data indicated that political conservatism, belief in racial superiority, caste-maintenance orientation, support of the Gulf War, and approval of police behavior in the beating of Rodney King were all significantly related to and possibly driven by a person's desire for group dominance (i.e., social dominance orientation). The relatively strong and consistent relationships among these variables were c...

The Possible Influence of Montaigne's "Essais" on Descartes' "Treatise of the Passions" (review)

49 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 99:3 JULY ~991 Michael G. Paulson. The PossibleInfluence of Montaigne's "Essais" on Descartes'"Treatise of the Passions." Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988. Pp. xiii + x23. Cloth, $92.50. Paper, $1o.25 . Descartes surely read Montaigne's Essais, and they doubtless had some influence on his writings. Paulson recapitulates "the resemblances between the Essais and the Discoursde la M~thode: the doubt or scepticism therein, the 'morale provisoire', the general conservatism in their outlook on life, the 'livre du monde', and the general ideas on travel" (13). Through a survey of the secondary literature and by juxtaposing texts from Descartes and Montaigne, Paulson shows that there is "a strong possibility that Montaigne 's Essais served as a source for the Trait~ des Passions" (116). Paulson remarks that Descartes examines the passions "from a theoretical or abstract viewpoint," while Montaigne "prefers to present his reader with concrete examples taken from history" (93)" There are various instances of Descartes using examples and subjects that appear in Montaigne, but there is no instance of Descartes using Montaigne's exact words. So Paulson's thesis is as well supported as the method of putting texts treating similar material side by side allows. Paulson speaks throughout of the Trait~ desPassions when the book was published as Les Passions de l'Ame. Also, Paulson erroneously believes that the Passions was composed for Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, whose biography he gives on p. 23, when in fact Descartes wrote for and was friends with her daughter. This rather undercuts Paulson's claim that Descartes bowdlerized the Essais "in order to make them presentable to Elizabeth Stuart" (loo). Paulson also mistakenly says that the Passions is dedicated to Elizabeth (6), when in fact it is dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden. RICHARD A. WATSON Washington University Hiram Caton. The Politics of Progress: The Origins and Development of the Commercial Republic, i6oo-z835. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 627. Cloth, $49.oo. During the heyday of nineteenth-century liberalism, it was possible to believe in universal history as a science which exhibited a moral progress in human affairs. In this study Caton is proposing nothing less than "a resumption of the universal history project" based on recent work in prehistory, evolutionary biology, and related fields. Unlike Spencer's evolutionary biology, which treated behavior as a dependent variable of social institutions, Caton assumes "the conservation of behaviors on the historical time scale, that is, their resistance to extinction or creation by institutional change" (5). What are these constant behaviors? The social structure of animals is a function of reproductive strategies evolved under the constraint of scarce resources. The social structure of the human species is the family and kinship system, which is about 1.5 million years old. Political structure evolves out of social structure with the appearance of institutions. Institutions enable prodigious effects of group action without modify- ...

Intelligence as a Function of Conservatism among White South African Students.

This study examined the relationship between general conservatism and components of intelligence in a White South African student sample. The results indicated no significant difference for full-scale IQ as measured by the South African Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) between subjects who achieved higher or lower scores on the conservatism variables. However, those subjects who had more conservative scores on measures of sociopolitical attitudes and traditionalism achieved higher scores on the block design and digit symbols subtests of the scale. A similar pattern emerged for performance IQ, with those with more conservative scores on the measure of traditionalism achieving higher scores than the less conservative subjects. In addition, disordinal interactions emerged when the relationship between the significant variables underlying conservatism and scores on the South African WAIS was examined.

The Impact of Home Ownership On Whites' Racial Attitudes

This article offers an update and extension of Kingston, Thompson, and Eichar's "The Politics of Home Ownership," using more recent data. The result reported by Kingston et al., that home ownership is not strongly related to general conservatism, voting for Republican presidential candidates, or Republican identification, is replicated in this study. However, this study shows that home ownership is significantly related to attitudes toward open housing, and to racial attitudes generally. Thus home ownership may be a more important source of political attitudes than previously thought.

Social attitudes in Catalonia

Factor analysis of social attitudes in different countries and cultures has revealed replicable patterns underlying specific attitudes and beliefs. In order to examine the structure of social attitudes in Catalonia, the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory (WPAI) was administered to a sample of 185 Catalan university students. Principal components analysis of the Catalan version of the WPAI revealed the existence of a general conservatism dimension superimposed upon several more specific content factors, consistent with results found in other countries. Sex differences in social attitudes were also similar to previous findings, with women emerging as more conventional and caring and men more permissive yet punitive.

Conservatism of Israeli junior high school students: interethnic differences.

The aims of the study were (a) to establish the factor structure characterizing Israeli junior high school students of Western and Oriental ethnic origin on the Children's Scale of Social Attitudes, (b) to compare the Israeli factor structure with those for school children from other societies, and (c) to examine whether the Israeli school children's factor structure resembled those for Israeli adults as well as for adults from other societies. Analysis indicated that Israeli junior high school children from both Western and Oriental ethnic groups were characterized by similar factors of general conservatism, namely, Religion, Antihedonism, and Punitiveness, although the Orientals were more conservative on these factors than the Westerners. In addition, the present factor structure resembled those for groups of school children as well as adults from other societies, reconfirming that factors of general conservatism have cross-cultural validity.

Moral judgement and human values

This study investigated relations between principled moral judgement as assessed by Rest's Defining Issues Test, the importance for self of the terminal and instrumental values from the Rokeach Value Survey, and general conservatism as measured by the Conservatism Scale. The study involved 133 male and female students in year 11 courses in four Adelaide high schools. The results showed that principled moral judgement (Stages 5 and 6) was positively linked to the importance assigned by subjects to inner harmony, being broadminded and being logical, and negatively related to the importance they assigned to being clean and obedient. Stage 4 moral judgement and general conservatism assessed by the Wilson and Patterson Conservatism Scale were positively related and both were related to a similar (but not identical) subset of values. Results were discussed in relation to theory and research in the areas of moral judgement and human values.

Cognitive Functioning and Sociopolitical Ideology Revisited

extremism theory, and (c) context theory. The subjects consisted of 195 Swedish high school students from five different high schools in greater Stockholm. The results showed no index convergence for the concepts of cognitive complexity and cognitive flexibility although general construct validity was found for the cognitive assessments instruments used. The results also revealed that four dimensions of sociopolitical ideology (general conservatism, racism, sexual repression, and authoritarian aggression) showed weak but statistically reliable relationships to cognitive flexibility and cognitive complexity from one cognitive assessment instrument. The nature of the results gave strong support to authoritarian personality theory and partial support to context theory. No support could be found for the extremism theory.

Sex differences in sociopolitical attitudes: A replication and extension

Sex differences in various aspects of sociopolitical ideology were studied with a sample of 783 Swedish high school students (median age = 18 years) from metropolitan Stockholm by use of the S6 Conservatism Scale. Males and females were compared with respect to six ideological dimensions: (1) general conservatism, (2) political‐economic conservatism, (3) religion, (4) punitiveness, (5) social inequality and (6) racism. The results revealed statistically significant differences on all six dimensions showing females to be less generally conservative, less ‘capitalist’ oriented, less punitive, more egalitarian and less racist than males. However, in line with previous findings, females were found to be more religious than males. Furthermore, the results showed females to be more ideologically homogeneous than males. Despite these differences the attitude profiles and attitude structures were quite similar for both sexes. There were no significant sex by social class interactions with respect to the sociopolitical attitude dimensions. In line with previous findings, females were found to be somewhat less interested in politics than males.

The Conservatism Scale and Theologically Conservative Pastors

Previous research with clergymen indicates a positive relationship between theological position (conservative-liberal) and the related construct dimension for authoritarianism, dogmatism, and conservatism. This study extends Wilson and Patterson's research of conservatism in New Zealand by examining the responses to their Conservatism Scale by theologically conservative pastors (Assemblies of God) in the United States. The data indicate the pastors were a very homogeneous group of males with reference to general conservatism, as Wilson and Patterson would predict. Theological conservatism may have had the effect of restricting variability of Conservatism scores. The constructs of general conservatism, as measured by the Conservatism Scale, and theological conservatism may be very similar.

Pornography: Important Political Symbol or Limited Political Issue?

Abstract From both the “status politics”' and “politics of life style concerns” perspectives, pornography is viewed as a political symbol, standing for a general political conservatism and attitudes toward specific political topics that this general conservatism underlies. Analysis of data from a 1973 Gallup poll shows that a particular type of pornography, commercial nudity, is more of a limited political issue. Opposition to this type of pornography is significantly related to an indicator of general political conservatism; however, this relationship has little carryover effect on associations between attitudes toward commerical nudity and attitudes toward specific political topics. What opposition to commercial nudity does seem to symbolize is conservative sexual morality, exhibiting a much stronger association with an indicator of this morality than with any other variable in this study.