Dogmatism captures closed-mindedness across both political extremes

Evidence

The five studies we have covered in these past few pages, which Vacchiano, Strauss, and Hochman covered in two paragraphs, address the basic premise underlying the Dogmatism Scale. None of them supports that premise, and most flatly contradict it, suggesting instead a D Scale-”rightist” link. So also do most of the other studies that the reviewers considered under different headings or that have appeared since: Bailes and Guller (1970), Direnzo (1968, 1971, 1986), Granberg and Corrigan (1972), Karabenick and Wilson (1969), Knutson (1974), McCarthy and Johnson (1962), Schwendiman, Lar- sen, and Cope (1970), Smithers and Lobley (1978), Thompson and Michel (1972). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2614 (#complicates, via linked claim)

If you consider the Stereopathy-Acquiescence items as a measure of “right- ist” authoritarianism, and overlook the difficulty in finding a significant difference with only 9 “authoritarians” from an original sample of 301, this study indicates that rightist authoritarianism is unconnected with dogmatism. But Hanson also found that, over the whole sample, dogmatism correlated higher with authoritarianism items than with nonauthoritarianism items. He observed, “It would appear then that, to some extent at least, there is an inherent relationship between authoritarianism of the right and dogmatism” (p. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2589 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Smithers and Lobley’s (1978) study comes closest of these to supporting Rokeach’s central premise of a curvilinear relationship between left-right social attitudes and D Scale scores. The subjects were 539 Bradford University (England) students. But, as Stone (1980) pointed out, no test of the significance of the curvilinear relationship was presented. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4254 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Observed conservative-versus-liberal dogmatism gaps may be response-style artifacts; High dogmatism predicts resistance to evidence on both sides of any issue; Political moderates think in more complex terms than extremists (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Evidence refutes dogmatism’s claim to be independent of political ideology #complicates (0.92) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2614
• Dogmatism correlates with rightist authoritarianism even when group comparisons fail. #complicates (0.90) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2589
• The claimed curvilinear link between left-right attitudes and dogmatism lacked significance tests #complicates (0.85) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4254