rdf
Contributor
Posts: 27
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Post by rdf on Feb 25, 2007 9:26:36 GMT -6
One of the reasons that discussions between liberals and conservatives seldom go anywhere is because of their differing world views. A reasonable fraction of conservatives have what is called a "right wing authoritarian" (RWA) personality type. This is someone who believes in a hierarchical social structure, headed by a strong leader. Much of what they "know" is based upon faith or trust in authority. John Dean discussed this in his most recent book "Conservatives without Conscience" which is based upon the work of psychologist Robert Altemeyer. Altemeyer has now written his own book which summarizes his 40 years of research and has put it online for free. You can read it a chapter at a time here: The AuthoritariansIs is important to understand how others think if one is going to make any progress in changing public opinion.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Feb 25, 2007 11:12:42 GMT -6
Interesting stuff, rdf. I took the authoritarian test in Chapter 1. The higher the score, the more authoritarian the respondant is. The lowest possibel score (the most anti-authoritative respondant) is 20. My score was 39, which is only 19 from the lowest possible score. Which puts me in the strongly "anti-authoritative" category. The average score for Libertarian Party members is 90. Chapter 1 can be found at: members.shaw.ca/perchaluk/drbob/chapter1.pdf
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Post by judes on Feb 25, 2007 12:34:26 GMT -6
That was an interesting chapter. My score was 28, not sure what that means. Wish they had a better summary for what scores indicate.
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Post by blueneck on Feb 25, 2007 12:42:33 GMT -6
The republican party seems to attract two primary types of people, blind followers, and the "it is because I said so" bullying know it all types.
It stands to reason that generally the higher your intellect, and the more independent minded you are the less likely you would fall into one of the two above categories, and therefore would be more likely to endorse a more independent stance.
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rdf
Contributor
Posts: 27
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Post by rdf on Feb 25, 2007 15:24:54 GMT -6
Two points: Altemeyer doesn't approve of people using the questions he lists in his book as a measure of individuals. He feels it gives a misleading picture, especially since people are aware of the purpose of the test.
When he administers the test to sample groups it is usually in a context which puts people off as to what is being measured.
Second you need to get further into the book before you come to the second type of personality: one measured by "social dominance organization". This is the type usually associated with leaders as opposed to RWA's who are usually followers.
So read the rest of the book before coming to any conclusions. (The last chapter will be up this week.)
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