Empirical results failed to link ethnocentrism directly to political-economic conservatism

Evidence

But Adorno suspected that there were hardly any genuine conservatives left in the United States. In his view they were being driven into the liberal camp as a result of changing conditions, in which being conservative increasingly tended to mean stirring up hatred against the workers and against minorities. In the United States, the liberal camp comprised those who supported the concepts of social reform represented by the New Deal and approved of state intervention to assist weaker members of society. The majority of the interviewees with conservative political and economic views were accordingly seen as pseudo-conservative. … They had anticipated that ethnocentrism and political and economic conservatism would correlate to one another closely. For example, not only blacks and Jews but also workers were victims of discrimination and of hierarchical thinking and conditions. But the correlation between the Eand PEC-scales, that is between ethnocentrism and political and economic conservatism, was markedly lower than the correlation between the Eand F-scales, that is between ethnocentrism and fascist psychological tendencies. Conservative political and economic views were very widespread, but many of those who held such views did not have high scores on the E-scale. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1801

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the authoritarian personality literature and the Adorno-Horkheimer critique of the Frankfurt School’s empirical turn in American exile. — connects to: Conservative politics do not predict ethnocentrism as well as fascist psychology does — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1801; Ethnocentric and anti-democratic attitudes sometimes coexisted with left-leaning political views — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 495; In every measured group, conservatism correlated positively with ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 465

Broader Connections

• Ethnocentric and anti-democratic attitudes sometimes coexisted with left-leaning political views #corroborates (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 495
• In every measured group, conservatism correlated positively with ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism #contradicts (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 465