Research scales can be framed to test hypotheses about ideology

Evidence

I developed the LWA Scale to test Shils’s (1954) hypothesis that Communist-types as well as fascist-types could be authoritarian. Accordingly, I tried hard to create this frame of reference for respondents by developing a preamble to the LWA Scale that reads: “In the items that follow, the ‘Establishment’ refers to the people in our country who have traditionally had the most power, the greatest control over the economy. That is, the wealthiest people, the large corporations and banks who are often called the RIGHT- WING forces in Canada. Whereas a ‘revolutionary movement’ denotes a LEFT-WING movement dedicated to overthrowing the Establishment, and taking away its power.” — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1001

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the LWA (Left-Wing Authoritarianism) scale and its deliberately constructed framing to detect authoritarianism across the ideological spectrum.
• XREF: connects to: The study balanced expanding its ideological coverage against contracting its quantitative procedures. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 730; Research concealment affected how student political attitudes were measured — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2334; SDT converts vague ideology claims into empirically testable mediational hypotheses — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3227