Dogmatism, Dogmatism Factors, and Liberalism-Conservatism

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Abstract
Dogmatism scores, dogmatism factor scores, and two indices of liberalism-conservatism were interrelated for 78 male students, 89 female students, 108 of their fathers, and 138 of their mothers. The six major dogmatism factors found in the literature were belief in one truth, belief in a cause, alienation, virtuous self-denial, self-proselytization, and authoritarianism; the content of the items measuring the factor usually called “alienation” suggests that it may instead measure “derogation of others.” The two indices of liberalism-conservatism were scores on a questionnaire and preference in the 1972 presidential election; neither was related to dogmatism in any of the samples, but Nixon supporters had more conservative attitudes than McGovern supporters in all four samples. Both indices of liberalism-conservatism were related to belief in one truth among the students; among the parents only the questionnaire scores were, and less than among the students. This difference between the groups of parents and students suggests that attitudes toward social issues may be more normative among the parent groups, mote personal among the student groups. In all four samples, the six dogmatism factors tended to have low positive intercorrelations, and every factor correlated significantly with total dogmatism. Total scores on the 15 items measuring the six factors correlated approximately .90 with total dogmatism in all four samples; these items may therefore be a theoretically meaningful brief dogmatism scale.

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