Relationship Between Social Context, Attitudes and Prejudice

Abstract

Previous research on the dual process model portrayed that right wing authoritarianism (RWA) and Social dominance orientation scale (SDO) predict prejudice in an independent context. RWA is believed to be in relation to threatening worldviews and SDO to be related to competitive worldviews. This study manipulates dangerous and competitive social contexts separately to gain a clearer insight to convey how RWA and SDO contribute to prejudice. The addition of two extremity scales (high vs. low) shows the influence of extremity in situations can manipulate prejudice in different context. The results of this research contributed to the field of prejudice as it discovered that there was a significant interaction with the high extremity condition and threat condition.

Introduction

Initial studies on ideological attitudes were based on the traditional uni-dimensional approach, which is intentioned to measure prejudice in a single dimension from a left to right scale with the use of the F-scale. This uni-dimensional concept is mostly strongly correlated with other social values, rather than behavior (Duriez & Van Hiel, 2002; Heaven & Conners, 2001), and as Altemeyer (1998) suggested the fact that the F-scale lacks reliability and uni-dimensionality, it was later revealed that it was measuring several poorly related factors, failing important validity criteria of authoritarianism. As a result, two new distinct dimensions: Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) were later introduced in the past two decades which also derived the dual process model of ideological attitudes to measure individual differences on ideological attitudes.

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Individual differences of prejudice can be predicted by the use of two distinct ideological variables: RWA and SDO (Whitley, 1999). Past research conveys that these two variables powerfully predict individual’s prejudice extremity towards out-groups (Duckitt J., & Fisher, K, 2003). RWA and SDO scales were initially proposed to measure personality, however this was later argued to be false (Duckitt J., & Fisher, K, 2003). It has always been a controversy about what exactly the RWA and SDO scale measure, as Adorno et al. (1950) and Altemeyer (1981, 1998) have proposed that these scales measure personality; specifically generalized behavioral disposition, but without empirical evidence.

RWA and SDO scales were known to be powerfully predicting political ideologies and intergroup relationships (Altemeyer, 1998). However, these two scales are seen as independent, as they are often not statistically significant or correlated (Altemeyer, 1998; McFarland, 1998; McFarland & Adelson, 1996; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Altemeyer (1998) therefore proposed that these two scales act independently to measure two different kinds of authoritarian personality, which determines if an individual is vulnerable to right-wing politics and ideology. This proposal however has been challenged, as the items of the RWA scale does not contribute to personality traits but shows ideological belief dimensions, which thus reveals prejudice (Feldman & Stenner, 1997). Moreover, the items in the SDO scales also reveal ideological beliefs rather than personality, therefore it is viewed that both RWA and SDO scales are to be more suitable to describe a prediction of an individual’s prejudice rather than personality (Duckitt J., & Fisher, K, 2003).

Past research conveyed that RWA and SDO scales predict individual differences in prejudice towards out-groups and minorities (Altemeyer, 1998). It was seen that these two scales form a basis of the phenomenon of generalized prejudice as both RWA and SDO scales require the presence of prejudice (Altemeyer, 1998). However, Duckitt (2000, 2001) proposed the dual process approach, which interprets SDO and RWA to have different basis motives and reasons for prejudice, which results in two different dimensions of generalized prejudice. RWA items are suggested to have beliefs in coercive social control, high conformity rate for existing authorities and values order (Duckitt & Sibley, 2009). On the other hand, SDO items are proposed to have beliefs in social & economic inequality; dominance of powerful groups over weak groups and values achievement. Moreover, important variables do not correlate.

Duckitt & Sibley (2007) uncovered that RWA and SDO scales are influenced by different views of the world. RWA views the world to be threatening and shows prejudice amongst groups considered to be ‘dangerous’. On the other hand, SDO views the world to be a socially competitive jungle, displaying prejudice against the ‘derogated’ group. Supporting this idea, Stangor and Leary (2006) noted that RWA and SDO have different motivationally based values. SDO has a strong negative relationship with both conservative values and egalitarian values, however RWA is shown to have a strong positive relationship only with conservative values. This thus shows that RWA and SDO are independent dimensions which have very different attitudes and base motivations.

As per previous studies, the dual process theory notes that SDO and RWA are independent dimensions, which measures and predicts prejudice against different out-groups: dangerous and derogated with different motivational goals (Duckitt & Sibley, 2009). Despite numerous research with regards to RWA SDO and the dual process model, it is still unknown if the extremity on prejudice towards a “dangerous group” and “derogated group” affects the view of a world with a threat or being competitive. It can be assumed that high extremity condition will produce higher prejudice against both Social threat condition and social competition conditions. It is further assumed that individuals will show higher prejudice against dangerous out-groups than derogated out-groups in social threat condition, while conversely, participants will show higher prejudice against derogated out-groups than dangerous out-groups in a social competition condition. In contrast with previous researches by Duckitt and Sibely (2007), our current research manipulates dangerous and competitive social contexts separately and adds prejudice as an outcome variable to view if extremity (high vs low) conditions vary prejudice. If the hypothesis is true, then it can be interpreted to be that an individual’s immediate environment is one of the factors of influence to RWA and SDO in the attitude and prejudice towards specific target groups disregarding any social context. If the hypothesis is false, it can be assumed that RWA and SDO are truly independent dimensions, which work differently in each extremity conditions.

The current research removed worldview, RWA and SDO for simplicity in contrast with past researches by Duckitt (2003, 2007). The current study will display 4 different findings, which can be evaluated and explored to uncover a deeper insight of the topic, possibly contributing to further studies.

Discussion

The result of the current study reveals that participants reported significantly more prejudice when social threat was high compared to when it was low. Moreover, participants reported significantly greater prejudice against dangerous groups compared to derogated groups in high extremity condition, however there was no significant difference in prejudice between dangerous and derogated groups in low extremity condition. This can be assumed that RWA and prejudice is significantly correlated with high extremity condition, but not with low extremity condition. Supporting the findings, Duckitt & Ficher (2003) reported that individuals shift their ideologies and attitudes rapidly to support authoritarianism when the world is viewed to become more dangerous and threatening. Conversely, if individuals perceived the world to be safe, they showed no change in their ideologies and attitudes. The results in the current study aligns with Duckitt & Ficher’s (2003) assumption that RWA is relatively more sensitive to high extremity conditions as low extremity conditions may be seen to only have a long term or delayed effect. An assumption to this rapid change is that as survival is the core innate human instinct, it can be suggested that RWA and social threat would have an unknown variable that contributes to the extremity conditions, as social threat is an immediate factor that decides life and death.

Perry, Sibley & Duckitt, (2013) confirmed that RWA and SDO are persistently correlated with specific social perceptions of society as threatening and competitive through their meta-analysis. Moreover, Van Hiel, Cornelis and Roets (2007) revealed that the correlation with SDO and competitive worldview has a higher correlation than the correlation with RWA and viewing the world as being a dangerous place. This in turn could be assumed that SDO scales have more specific unknown factors contributing to prejudice. However, the findings of the current study reveals that high extremity conditions apply to threatening world-view, therefore it can be noted that the extremity condition can be an exception to the contributing factor for stronger link between competitive world-view and SDO.

The result of the current study reveals that participants reported significantly more prejudice towards both dangerous and derogated groups when social competition was high compared to when it was low. Interestingly, the results convey no significant interaction between extremity condition and out-groups. Supporting the study conducted by Van Hiel, Cornelis, and Roets (2007), Perry et al. (2013) confirmed that the link between worldviews and ideological attitudes are strong, however there is an asymmetry between the strength of relationship of worldview with RWA and SDO respectfully. It was found that SDO had a stronger association with competitive worldview than relationship of RWA and dangerous worldview. This can alternately suggest that this strong relationship between SDO and competitive worldview results as a constant outcome although extremity conditions were altered.

Through our findings, it is noted that the only significant interaction between extremity condition and out-group would be the social threat condition when social threat is perceived to be high. As per our result, an assumption can be made that the current social status of an individual influences the view of their world, as they reflect on their own experiences. Research conducted by Van Hiel, Cornelis, and Roets (2007) found that adults were more prone to dangerous worldview and RWA than undergraduate students. Dissimilarly, there was no significant difference between competitive worldview and SDO for the two samples. This can be interpreted as adults to be more sensitive on extremity levels only with RWA and dangerous worldviews, which contrasts with the result of our current research. Further research can be conducted to reveal the unknown factors related with age.

The significant main effect of extremity condition is that participants reported significantly more prejudice when social threat was high compared to when it was low. The results show significant interaction between extremity condition (high vs low) and out-group by showing higher prejudice against dangerous groups on a high social threat condition. However, when social threat was low, there was no significant difference in prejudice between dangerous and derogated groups. The question is why did extremity condition only have effect on high threat worldviews? SDO was intended to measure the general attitudinal intentions of the relationship towards an out-group, showing if an individual generally wish the relationship to be equal versus hierarchical (Pratto. F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L., & Malle, B, 1994). Therefore, it can be assumed the samples were not suitable as participants are undergraduate psychology students who tend to be more easy-going on derogated out-groups. Moreover, similarly to Duckitt & Ficher’s (2003) study, the potential limitation of this study might be the cause of the ceiling effect, which is Australia already being perceived as a safe and secure country; therefore suggestions are to run the experiment on different samples in another country.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is noted that high extremity condition is only related to the high social threat condition and through the results of the current study, it is possible to develop strategies to reduce prejudice by studying the mechanisms of extremity with RWA and SDO. Specifically, it is noted that prejudice is significantly more correlated with RWA on a high extremity condition, however it is still unclear what it is exactly related to, therefore it requires further research.

Reference

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