Harvard professor of psychology James Sidanius and colleagues have developed a measure of what they describe ‘social dominance orientation,’ or, in academic shorthand, SDO. Sidanius and his associates use a 16 question survey to place respondents on a scale of high to low SDO. Those high in SDO gave favorable responses to the first eight statements and negative responses to questions nine through sixteen:
1. Some groups of people are just more worthy than others
2. In getting what your group wants, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups
3. It's OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others
4. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups
5. If certain groups of people stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems
6. It's probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom.
7. Inferior groups should stay in their place
8. Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place
9. It would be good if all groups could be equal
10. Group equality should be our ideal
11. All groups should be given an equal chance in life
12. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups
13. We should increase social equality
14. We would have fewer problems if we treated different groups more equally.
15. We should strive to make incomes more equal
16. No one group should dominate in society
Sidanius et al. found that SDO is higher among whites than among African Americans; is negatively related to empathy, openness, and agreeableness; and is positively linked to aggressivity, vindictiveness, coldness, tough-mindedness, and to a belief that ‘the world is a zero-sum game.’ In addition, those ranking high on a SDO scale ‘will use others to get ahead . . . they believe that harming people is legitimate, are observably disagreeable, cold, and vindictive, are low in benevolence, and do not hesitate to humiliate others. Their dog-eat-dog mentality leads them to support economic competition and war over social welfare programs . . . people high in SDO tend to be callous, confident, and cruel.’ (links/citations in original)
Sound like any group we know? Speaking as a soft old progressive idealist, that sounds like no one I wish to associate with!
Are the characterizations wrong? Harsh, yes, but think for a moment about the behaviors of those from the far-right in particular. Anyone care to dispute that the descriptions aren’t evidenced daily by the pronouncements and actions of so many of them?
As Altemeyer (1998) argued,
First, High RWA’s [Right-Wing Authoritarians] are scared. They see the world as a dangerous place, as society teeters on the brink of self-destruction from evil and violence. This fear appears to instigate aggression in them. Second, right-wing authoritarians tend to be highly self-righteous. They think themselves much more moral and upstanding than others—a selfperception considerably aided by self-deception, their religious training, and some very efficient guilt evaporators (such as going to confession). This self-righteousness disinhibits their aggressive impulses and releases them to act out their fear-induced hostilities (links/citations in original) *
Not especially flattering, although the subjects might be more inclined to smirk with ore than a bit of ill-concealed pride, if they bother to consider these matters at all. More likely they wouldn’t care, and assume that any problems with these assessments are the assessor’s problems and not theirs.
Say what you will about what type of person conducts himself or herself in this fashion and related concepts about integrity, decency, and character, those who operate on motivations driven by fear, a certain level of conspiracy-laden paranoia [a trait Richard Hofstadter famously shone a bright light on more than a half-century ago], a religion-directed self-righteousness which eliminates the need for introspection or compassion, and assorted other malevolent inclinations are not going to be of much help to anyone else as our national challenges grow more intractable. (One would have to wonder what their reactions might be when the personality shields they hide behind turns out to be paper-thin when reality strikes.)
Clearly the leaders of that wolf-pack have more than enough followers and supporters [see the excellent report by the above-referenced/linked Robert Altemeyer] to permit them to continue their descent into wherever they reside.
As our challenges [inequality, climate change, peak oil, etc.] grow more intense and their impacts become more widely distributed, the possibility remains that the followers at least might start investing some time to consider how those dominoes will continue to fall if they continue to follow the same principles and conduct themselves in the same manner as always.
The old adage that “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten” may reveal itself to be both true and decidedly unpleasant. The door then opens for more cooperation and dismissal of ideological underpinnings which by then will have made bad situations much worse.
Better still, they might consider these issues with greater thought before we get to that point. Better a day early than a day late.
We can only continue to hope….
* SOURCE: Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition by John T. Jost Stanford University; Arie W. Kruglanski University of Maryland at College Park; Jack Glaser University of California, Berkeley; Frank J. Sulloway University of California, Berkeley.
Psychological Bulletin Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2003, Vol. 129, No. 3, 339–375
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