Chapter I
Introduction
A. The Problem
The research to be reported in this volume was guided by the following major hypothesis: that the political, economic, and social convictions of an individual often form a broad and coherent pattern, as if bound together by a »mentality« or »spirit,« and that this pattern is an expression of deep-lying trends in his personality.
The major concern was with the potentially fascistic individual, one whose structure is such as to render him particularly susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda. We say »potential« because we have not studied individuals who were avowedly fascistic or who belonged to known fascist organizations. At the time when most of our data were collected fascism had just been defeated in war and, hence, we could not expect to find subjects who would openly identify themselves with it; yet there was no difficulty in finding subjects whose outlook was such as to indicate that they would readily accept fascism if it should become a strong or respectable social movement.
In concentrating upon the potential fascist we do not wish to imply that other patterns of personality and ideology might not profitably be studied in the same way. It is our opinion, however, that no politico-social trend imposes a graver threat to our traditional values and institutions than does fascism, and that knowledge of the personality forces that favor its acceptance may ultimately prove useful in combating it. A question may be raised as to why, if we wish to explore new resources for combating fascism, we do not give as much attention to the »potential antifascist.« The answer is that we do study trends that stand in opposition to fascism, but we do not conceive that they constitute any single pattern. It is one of the major findings of the present study that individuals who show extreme susceptibility to fascist propaganda have a great deal in common. (They exhibit numerous characteristics that go together to form a »syndrome« although typical variations within this major pattern can be distinguished.) Individuals who are extreme in the opposite direction are much more diverse. The task of diagnosing potential fascism and studying its determinants required techniques especially designed for these purposes; it could not be asked of them that they serve as well for various other patterns. Nevertheless, it was possible to distinguish several types of personality structure that seemed particularly resistant to antidemocratic ideas, and these are given due attention in later chapters.
If a potentially fascistic individual exists, what, precisely, is he like? What goes to make up antidemocratic thought? What are the organizing forces within the person? If such a person exists, how commonly does he exist in our society? And if such a person exists, what have been the determinants and what the course of his development?
These are questions upon which the present research was designed to throw some light. Though the notion that the potentially antidemocratic individual is a totality may be accepted as a plausible hypothesis, some analysis is called for at the start. In most approaches to the problem of political types two essential conceptions may be distinguished: the conception of ideology and the conception of underlying needs in the person. Though the two may be thought of as forming an organized whole within the individual, they may nonetheless be studied separately. The same ideological trends may in different individuals have different sources, and the same personal needs may express themselves in different ideological trends.
The term ideology is used in this book, in the way that is common in current literature, to stand for an organization of opinions, attitudes, and values – a way of thinking about man and society. We may speak of an individual's total ideology or of his ideology with respect to different areas of social life: politics, economics, religion, minority groups, and so forth. Ideologies have an existence independent of any single individual; and those which exist at a particular time are results both of historical processes and of contemporary social events. These ideologies have for different individuals, different degrees of appeal, a matter that depends upon the individual's needs and the degree to which these needs are being satisfied or frustrated.
There are, to be sure, individuals who take unto themselves ideas from more than one existing ideological system and weave them into patterns that are more or less uniquely their own. It can be assumed, however, that when the opinions, attitudes, and values of numerous individuals are examined, common patterns will be discovered. These patterns may not in all cases correspond to the familiar, current ideologies, but they will fulfill the definition of ideology given above and in each case be found to have a function within the over-all adjustment of the individual.
The present inquiry into the nature of the potentially fascistic individual began with anti-Semitism in the focus of attention. The authors, in common with most social scientists, hold the view that anti-Semitism is based more largely upon factors in the subject and in his total situation than upon actual characteristics of Jews, and that one place to look for determinants of anti-Semitic opinions and attitudes is within the persons who express them. Since this emphasis on personality required a focusing of attention on psychology rather than on sociology or history – though in the last analysis the three can be separated only artificially – there could be no attempt to account for the existence of anti-Semitic ideas in our society. The question was, rather, why is it that certain individuals accept these ideas while others do not? And since from the start the research was guided by the hypotheses stated above, it was supposed (1) that anti-Semitism probably is not a specific or isolated phenomenon but a part of a broader ideological framework, and (2) that an individual's susceptibility to this ideology depends primarily upon his psychological needs.
The insights and hypotheses concerning the antidemocratic individual, which are present in our general cultural climate, must be supported by a great deal of painstaking observation, and in many instances by quantification, before they can be regarded as conclusive. How can one say with assurance that the numerous opinions, attitudes, and values expressed by an individual actually constitute a consistent pattern or organized totality? The most intensive investigation of that individual would seem to be necessary. How can one say that opinions, attitudes, and values found in groups of people go together to form patterns, some of which are more common than others? There is no adequate way to proceed other than by actually measuring, in populations, a wide variety of thought contents and determining by means of standard statistical methods which ones go together.
To many social psychologists the scientific study of ideology, as it has been defined, seems a hopeless task. To measure with suitable accuracy a single, specific, isolated attitude is a long and arduous proceeding for both subject and experimenter. (It is frequently argued that unless the attitude is specific and isolated, it cannot properly be measured at all.) How then can we hope to survey within a reasonable period of time the numerous attitudes and ideas that go to make up an ideology? Obviously, some kind of selection is necessary. The investigator must limit himself to what is most significant, and judgments of significance can only be made on the basis of theory.
The theories that have guided the present research will be presented in suitable contexts later. Though theoretical considerations had a role at every stage of the work, a beginning had to be made with the objective study of the most observable and relatively specific opinions, attitudes, and values.
Opinions, attitudes, and values, as we conceive of them, are expressed more or less openly in words. Psychologically they are »on the surface.« It must be recognized, however, that when it comes to such affect-laden questions as those concerning minority groups and current political issues, the degree of openness with which a person speaks will depend upon the situation in which he finds himself. There may be a discrepancy between what he says on a particular occasion and what he »really thinks.« Let us say that what he really thinks he can express in confidential discussion with his intimates. This much, which is still relatively superficial psychologically, may still be observed directly by the psychologist if he uses appropriate techniques – and this we have attempted to do.
It is to be recognized, however, that the individual may have »secret« thoughts which he will under no circumstances reveal to anyone else if he can help it; he may have thoughts which he cannot admit to himself, and he may have thoughts which he does not express because they are so vague and ill-formed that he cannot put them into words. To gain access to these deeper trends is particularly important, for precisely here may lie the individual's potential for democratic or anti-democratic thought and action in crucial situations.
What people say and, to a lesser degree, what they really think depends very largely upon the climate of opinion in which they are living; but when that climate changes, some individuals adapt themselves much more quickly than others. If there should be a marked increase in antidemocratic propaganda, we should expect some people to accept and repeat it at once, others when it seemed that »everybody believed it,« and still others not at all. In other words, individuals differ in their susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda, in their readiness to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. It seems necessary to study ideology at this »readiness level« in order to gauge the potential for fascism in this country. Observers have noted that the amount of outspoken anti-Semitism in pre-Hitler Germany was less than that in this country at the present time; one might hope that the potentiality is less in this country, but this can be known only through intensive investigation, through the detailed survey of what is on the surface and the thorough probing of what lies beneath it.
A question may be raised as to what is the degree of relationship between ideology and action. If an individual is making antidemocratic propaganda or engaging in overt attacks upon minority group members, it is usually assumed that his opinions, attitudes, and values are congruent with his action; but comfort is sometimes found in the thought that though another individual expresses antidemocratic ideas verbally, he does not, and perhaps will not, put them into overt action. Here, once again, there is a question of potentialities. Overt action, like open verbal expression, depends very largely upon the situation of the moment – something that is best described in socioeconomic and political terms – but individuals differ very widely with respect to their readiness to be provoked into action. The study of this potential is a part of the study of the individual's over-all ideology; to know what kinds and what intensities of belief, attitude, and value are likely to lead to action, and to know what forces within the individual serve as inhibitions upon action are matters of the greatest practical importance.
There seems little reason to doubt that ideology-in-readiness (ideological receptivity) and ideology-in-words and in action are essentially the same stuff. The description of an individual's total ideology must portray not only the organization on each level but organization among levels. What the individual consistently says in public, what he says when he feels safe from criticism, what he thinks but will not say at all, what he thinks but will not admit to himself, what he is disposed to think or to do when various kinds of appeal are made to him – all these phenomena may be conceived of as constituting a single structure. The structure may not be integrated, it may contain contradictions as well as consistencies, but it is organized in the sense that the constituent parts are related in psychologically meaningful ways.
In order to understand such a structure, a theory of the total personality is necessary. According to the theory that has guided the present research, personality is a more or less enduring organization of forces within the individual. These persisting forces of personality help to determine response in various situations, and it is thus largely to them that consistency of behavior – whether verbal or physical – is attributable. But behavior, however consistent, is not the same thing as personality; personality lies behind behavior and within the individual. The forces of personality are not responses but readinesses for response; whether or not a readiness will issue in overt expression depends not only upon the situation of the moment but upon what other readinesses stand in opposition to it. Personality forces which are inhibited are on a deeper level than those which immediately and consistently express themselves in overt behavior.
What are the forces of personality and what are the processes by which they are organized? For theory as to the structure of personality we have leaned most heavily upon Freud, while for a more or less systematic formulation of the more directly observable and measurable aspects of personality we have been guided primarily by academic psychology. The forces of personality are primarily needs (drives, wishes, emotional impulses) which vary from one individual to another in their quality, their intensity, their mode of gratification, and the objects of their attachment, and which interact with other needs in harmonious or conflicting patterns. There are primitive emotional needs, there are needs to avoid punishment and to keep the good will of the social group, there are needs to maintain harmony and integration within the self.
Since it will be granted that opinions, attitudes, and values depend upon human needs, and since personality is essentially an organization of needs, then personality may be regarded as a determinant of ideological preferences. Personality is not, however, to be hypostatized as an ultimate determinant. Far from being something which is given in the beginning, which remains fixed and acts upon the surrounding world, personality evolves under the impact of the social environment and can never be isolated from the social totality within which it occurs. According to the present theory, the effects of environmental forces in moulding the personality are, in general, the more profound the earlier in the life history of the individual they are brought to bear. The major influences upon personality development arise in the course of child training as carried forward in a setting of family life. What happens here is profoundly influenced by economic and social factors. It is not only that each family in trying to rear its children proceeds according to the ways of the social, ethnic, and religious groups in which it has membership, but crude economic factors affect directly the parents' behavior toward the child. This means that broad changes in social conditions and institutions will have a direct bearing upon the kinds of personalities that develop within a society.
The present research seeks to discover correlations between ideology and sociological factors operating in the individual's past – whether or not they continue to operate in his present. In attempting to explain these correlations the relationships between personality and ideology are brought into the picture, the general approach being to consider personality as an agency through which sociological influences upon ideology are mediated. If the role of personality can be made clear, it should be possible better to understand which sociological factors are the most crucial ones and in what ways they achieve their effects.
Although personality is a product of the social environment of the past, it is not, once it has developed, a mere object of the contemporary environment. What has developed is a structure within the individual, something which is capable of self-initiated action upon the social environment and of selection with respect to varied impinging stimuli, something which though always modifiable is frequently very resistant to fundamental change. This conception is necessary to explain consistency of behavior in widely varying situations, to explain the persistence of ideological trends in the face of contradicting facts and radically altered social conditions, to explain why people in the same sociological situation have different or even conflicting views on social issues, and why it is that people whose behavior has been changed through psychological manipulation lapse into their old ways as soon as the agencies of manipulation are removed.
The conception of personality structure is the best safeguard against the inclination to attribute persistent trends in the individual to something »innate« or »basic« or »racial« within him. The Nazi allegation that natural, biological traits decide the total being of a person would not have been such a successful political device had it not been possible to point to numerous instances of relative fixity in human behavior and to challenge those who thought to explain them on any basis other than a biological one. Without the conception of personality structure, writers whose approach rests upon the assumption of infinite human flexibility and responsiveness to the social situation of the moment have not helped matters by referring persistent trends which they could not approve to »confusion« or »psychosis« or evil under one name or another. There is, of course, some basis for describing as »pathological« patterns of behavior which do not conform with the most common, and seemingly most lawful, responses to momentary stimuli. But this is to use the term pathological in the very narrow sense of deviation from the average found in a particular context and, what is worse, to suggest that everything in the personality structure is to be put under this heading. Actually, personality embraces variables which exist widely in the population and have lawful relations one to another. Personality patterns that have been dismissed as »pathological« because they were not in keeping with the most common manifest trends or the most dominant ideals within a society, have on closer investigation turned out to be but exaggerations of what was almost universal below the surface in that society. What is »pathological« today may with changing social conditions become the dominant trend of tomorrow.
It seems clear then that an adequate approach to the problems before us must take into account both fixity and flexibility; it must regard the two not as mutually exclusive categories but as the extremes of a single continuum along which human characteristics may be placed, and it must provide a basis for understanding the conditions which favor the one extreme or the other. Personality is a concept to account for relative permanence. But it may be emphasized again that personality is mainly a potential; it is a readiness for behavior rather than behavior itself; although it consists in dispositions to behave in certain ways, the behavior that actually occurs will always depend upon the objective situation. Where the concern is with antidemocratic trends, a delineation of the conditions for individual expression requires an understanding of the total organization of society.
It has been stated that the personality structure may be such as to render the individual susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda. It may now be asked what are the conditions under which such propaganda would increase in pitch and volume and come to dominate in press and radio to the exclusion of contrary ideological stimuli, so that what is now potential would become actively manifest. The answer must be sought not in any single personality nor in personality factors found in the mass of people, but in processes at work in society itself. It seems well understood today that whether or not antidemocratic propaganda is to become a dominant force in this country depends primarily upon the situation of the most powerful economic interests, upon whether they, by conscious design or not, make use of this device for maintaining their dominant status. This is a matter about which the great majority of people would have little to say.
The present research, limited as it is to the hitherto largely neglected psychological aspects of fascism, does not concern itself with the production of propaganda. It focuses attention, rather, upon the consumer, the individual for whom the propaganda is designed. In so doing it attempts to take into account not only the psychological structure of the individual but the total objective situation in which he lives. It makes the assumption that people in general tend to accept political and social programs which they believe will serve their economic interests. What these interests are depends in each case upon the individual's position in society as defined in economic and sociological terms. An important part of the present research, therefore, was the attempt to discover what patterns of socioeconomic factors are associated with receptivity, and with resistance, to antidemocratic propaganda.
At the same time, however, it was considered that economic motives in the individual may not have the dominant and crucial role that is often ascribed to them. If economic self-interest were the only determinant of opinion, we should expect people of the same socioeconomic status to have very similar opinions, and we should expect opinion to vary in a meaningful way from one socioeconomic grouping to another. Research has not given very sound support for these expectations. There is only the most general similarity of opinion among people of the same socioeconomic status, and the exceptions are glaring; while variations from one socioeconomic group to another are rarely simple or clear-cut. To explain why it is that people of the same socioeconomic status so frequently have different ideologies, while people of a different status often have very similar ideologies, we must take account of other than purely economic needs.
More than this, it is becoming increasingly plain that people very frequently do not behave in such a way as to further their material interests, even when it is clear to them what these interests are. The resistance of white-collar workers to organization is not due to a belief that the union will not help them economically; the tendency of the small businessman to side with big business in most economic and political matters cannot be due entirely to a belief that this is the way to guarantee his economic independence. In instances such as these the individual seems not only not to consider his material interests, but even to go against them. It is as if he were thinking in terms of a larger group identification, as if his point of view were determined more by his need to support this group and to suppress opposite ones than by rational consideration of his own interests. Indeed, it is with a sense of relief today that one is assured that a group conflict is merely a clash of economic interests – that each side is merely out to »do« the other – and not a struggle in which deep-lying emotional drives have been let loose. When it comes to the ways in which people appraise the social world, irrational trends stand out glaringly. One may conceive of a professional man who opposes the immigration of Jewish refugees on the ground that this will increase the competition with which he has to deal and so decrease his income. However undemocratic this may be, it is at least rational in a limited sense. But for this man to go on, as do most people who oppose Jews on occupational grounds, and accept a wide variety of opinions, many of which are contradictory, about Jews in general, and to attribute various ills of the world to them, is plainly illogical. And it is just as illogical to praise all Jews in accordance with a »good« stereotype of them. Hostility against groups that is based upon real frustration, brought about by members of that group, undoubtedly exists, but such frustrating experiences can hardly account for the fact that prejudice is apt to be generalized. Evidence from the present study confirms what has often been indicated: that a man who is hostile toward one minority group is very likely to be hostile against a wide variety of others. There is no conceivable rational basis for such generalization; and, what is more striking, prejudice against, or totally uncritical acceptance of, a particular group often exists in the absence of any experience with members of that group. The objective situation of the individual seems an unlikely source of such irrationality; rather we should seek where psychology has already found the sources of dreams, fantasies, and misinterpretations of the world – that is, in the deep-lying needs of the personality.
Another aspect of the individual's situation which we should expect to affect his ideological receptivity is his membership in social groups – occupational, fraternal, religious, and the like. For historical and sociological reasons, such groups favor and promulgate, whether officially or unofficially, different patterns of ideas. There is reason to believe that individuals, out of their needs to conform and to belong and to believe and through such devices as imitation and conditioning, often take over more or less ready-made the opinions, attitudes, and values that are characteristic of the groups in which they have membership. To the extent that the ideas which prevail in such a group are implicitly or explicitly antidemocratic, the individual group member might be expected to be receptive to propaganda having the same general direction. Accordingly, the present research investigates a variety of group memberships with a view to what general trends of thought – and how much variability – might be found in each.
It is recognized, however, that a correlation between group membership and ideology may be due to different kinds of determination in different individuals. In some cases it might be that the individual merely repeats opinions which are taken for granted in his social milieu and which he has no reason to question; in other cases it might be that the individual has chosen to join a particular group because it stood for ideals with which he was already in sympathy. In modern society, despite enormous communality in basic culture, it is rare for a person to be subjected to only one pattern of ideas, after he is old enough for ideas to mean something to him. Some selection is usually made, according, it may be supposed, to the needs of his personality. Even when individuals are exposed during their formative years almost exclusively to a single, closely knit pattern of political, economic, social, and religious ideas, it is found that some conform while others rebel, and it seems proper to inquire whether personality factors do not make the difference. The soundest approach, it would seem, is to consider that in the determination of ideology, as in the determination of any behavior, there is a situational factor and a personality factor, and that a careful weighing of the role of each will yield the most accurate prediction.
Situational factors, chiefly economic condition and social group memberships, have been studied intensively in recent researches on opinion and attitude, while the more inward, more individualistic factors have not received the attention they deserve. Beyond this, there is still another reason why the present study places particular emphasis upon the personality. Fascism, in order to be successful as a political movement, must have a mass basis. It must secure not only the frightened submission but the active cooperation of the great majority of the people. Since by its very nature it favors the few at the expense of the many, it cannot possibly demonstrate that it will so improve the situation of most people that their real interests will be served. It must therefore make its major appeal, not to rational self-interest, but to emotional needs – often to the most primitive and irrational wishes and fears. If it be argued that fascist propaganda fools people into believing that their lot will be improved, then the question arises: Why are they so easily fooled? Because, it may be supposed, of their personality structure; because of long-established patterns of hopes and aspirations, fears and anxieties that dispose them to certain beliefs and make them resistant to others. The task of fascist propaganda, in other words, is rendered easier to the degree that antidemocratic potentials already exist in the great mass of people. It may be granted that in Germany economic conflicts and dislocations within the society were such that for this reason alone the triumph of fascism was sooner or later inevitable; but the Nazi leaders did not act as if they believed this to be so; instead they acted as if it were necessary at every moment to take into account the psychology of the people – to activate every ounce of their antidemocratic potential, to compromise with them, to stamp out the slightest spark of rebellion. It seems apparent that any attempt to appraise the chances of a fascist triumph in America must reckon with the potential existing in the character of the people. Here lies not only the susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda but the most dependable sources of resistance to it.
The present writers believe that it is up to the people to decide whether or not this country goes fascist. It is assumed that knowledge of the nature and extent of antidemocratic potentials will indicate programs for democratic action. These programs should not be limited to devices for manipulating people in such a way that they will behave more democratically, but they should be devoted to increasing the kind of self-awareness and self-determination that makes any kind of manipulation impossible. There is one explanation for the existence of an individual's ideology that has not so far been considered: that it is the view of the world which a reasonable man, with some understanding of the role of such determinants as those discussed above, and with complete access to the necessary facts, will organize for himself. This conception, though it has been left to the last, is of crucial importance for a sound approach to ideology. Without it we should have to share the destructive view, which has gained some acceptance in the modern world, that since all ideologies, all philosophies, derive from nonrational sources there is no basis for saying that one has more merit than another.
But the rational system of an objective and thoughtful man is not a thing apart from personality. Such a system is still motivated. What is distinguishing in its sources is mainly the kind of personality organization from which it springs. It might be said that a mature personality (if we may for the moment use this term without defining it) will come closer to achieving a rational system of thought than will an immature one; but a personality is no less dynamic and no less organized for being mature, and the task of describing the structure of this personality is not different in kind from the task of describing any other personality. According to theory, the personality variables which have most to do with determining the objectivity and rationality of an ideology are those which belong to the ego, that part of the personality which appreciates reality, integrates the other parts, and operates with the most conscious awareness.
It is the ego that becomes aware of and takes responsibility for nonrational forces operating within the personality. This is the basis for our belief that the object of knowing what are the psychological determinants of ideology is that men can become more reasonable. It is not supposed, of course, that this will eliminate differences of opinion. The world is sufficiently complex and difficult to know, men have enough real interests that are in conflict with the real interests of other men, there are enough ego-accepted differences in personality to insure that arguments about politics, economics, and religion will never grow dull. Knowledge of the psychological determinants of ideology cannot tell us what is the truest ideology; it can only remove some of the barriers in the way of its pursuit.
B. Methodology
1. General Characteristics of the Method
To attack the problems conceptualized above required methods for describing and measuring ideological trends and methods for exposing personality, the contemporary situation, and the social background. A particular methodological challenge was imposed by the conception of levels in the person; this made it necessary to devise techniques for surveying opinions, attitudes, and values that were on the surface, for revealing ideological trends that were more or less inhibited and reached the surface only in indirect manifestations, and for bringing to light personality forces that lay in the subject's unconscious. And since the major concern was with patterns of dynamically related factors – something that requires study of the total individual – it seemed that the proper approach was through intensive clinical studies. The significance and practical importance of such studies could not be gauged, however, until there was knowledge of how far it was possible to generalize from them. Thus it was necessary to perform group studies as well as individual studies, and to find ways and means for integrating the two.
Individuals were studied by means of interviews and special clinical techniques for revealing underlying wishes, fears, and defenses; groups were studied by means of questionnaires. It was not expected that the clinical studies would be as complete or profound as some which have already been performed, primarily by psychoanalysts, nor that the questionnaires would be more accurate than any now employed by social psychologists. It was hoped, however – indeed it was necessary to our purpose – that the clinical material could be conceptualized in such a way as to permit its being quantified and carried over into group studies, and that the questionnaires could be brought to bear upon areas of response ordinarily left to clinical study. The attempt was made, in other words, to bring methods of traditional social psychology into the service of theories and concepts from the newer dynamic theory of personality and in so doing to make »depth psychological« phenomena more amenable to mass-statistical treatment, and to make quantitative surveys of attitudes and opinions more meaningful psychologically.
In the attempt to integrate clinical and group studies, the two were carried on in close conjunction. When the individual was in the focus of attention, the aim was to describe in detail his pattern of opinions, attitudes, and values and to understand the dynamic factors underlying it, and on this basis to design significant questions for use with groups of subjects. When the group was in the focus of attention, the aim was to discover what opinions, attitudes, and values commonly go together and what patterns of factors in the life histories and in the contemporary situations of the subjects were commonly associated with each ideological constellation; this afforded a basis on which to select individuals for more intensive study: commanding first attention were those who exemplified the common patterns and in whom it could be supposed that the correlated factors were dynamically related.
In order to study potentially antidemocratic individuals it was necessary first to identify them. Hence a start was made by constructing a questionnaire and having it filled out anonymously by a large group of people. This questionnaire contained, in addition to numerous questions of fact about the subject's past and present life, a variety of antidemocratic statements with which the subjects were invited to agree or disagree. A number of individuals who showed the greatest amount of agreement with these statements – and, by way of contrast, some who showed the most disagreement or, in some instances, were most neutral – were then studied by means of interviews and other clinical techniques. On the basis of these individual studies the questionnaire was revised, and the whole procedure repeated.
The interview was used in part as a check upon the validity of the questionnaire, that is to say, it provided a basis for judging whether people who obtained the highest antidemocratic scores on the questionnaire were usually those who, in a confidential relationship with another person, expressed antidemocratic sentiments with the most intensity. What was more important, however, the clinical studies gave access to the deeper personality factors behind antidemocratic ideology and suggested the means for their investigation on a mass scale. With increasing knowledge of the underlying trends of which prejudice was an expression, there was increasing familiarity with various other signs or manifestations by which these trends could be recognized. The task then was to translate these manifestations into questionnaire items for use in the next group study. Progress lay in finding more and more reliable indications of the central personality forces and in showing with increasing clarity the relations of these forces to antidemocratic ideological expression.
2. The Techniques
The questionnaires and clinical techniques employed in the study may be described briefly as follows:
a. THE QUESTIONNAIRE METHOD. The questionnaires were always presented in mimeographed form and filled out anonymously by subjects in groups. Each questionnaire included (1) factual questions, (2) opinion-attitude scales, and (3) »projective« (open answer) questions.
1. The factual questions had to do mainly with past and present group memberships: church preference and attendance, political party, vocation, income, and so on. It was assumed that the answers could be taken at their face value. In selecting the questions, we were guided at the start by hypotheses concerning the sociological correlates of ideology; as the study progressed we depended more and more upon experience with interviewees.
2. Opinion-attitude scales were used from the start in order to obtain quantitative estimates of certain surface ideological trends: anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism, politico-economic conservatism. Later, a scale was developed for the measurement of antidemocratic tendencies in the personality itself.
Each scale was a collection of statements, with each of which the subject was asked to express the degree of his agreement or disagreement. Each statement concerned some relatively specific opinion, attitude, or value, and the basis for grouping them within a particular scale was the conception that taken together they expressed a single general trend.
The general trends to which the scales pertained were conceived very broadly, as complex systems of thought about wide areas of social living. To define these trends empirically it was necessary to obtain responses to many specific issues – enough to »cover« the area mapped out conceptually – and to show that each of them bore some relation to the whole.
This approach stands in contrast to the public opinion poll: whereas the poll is interested primarily in the distribution of opinion with respect to a particular issue, the present interest was to inquire, concerning a particular opinion, with what other opinions and attitudes it was related. The plan was to determine the existence of broad ideological trends, to develop instruments for their measurement, and then to inquire about their distribution within larger populations.
The approach to an ideological area was to appraise its grosser features first and its finer or more specific features later. The aim was to gain a view of the »over-all picture« into which smaller features might later be fitted, rather than to obtain highly precise measures of small details in the hope that these might eventually add up to something significant. Although this emphasis upon breadth and inclusiveness prevented the attainment of the highest degree of precision in measurement, it was nevertheless possible to develop each scale to a point where it met the currently accepted statistical standards.
Since each scale had to cover a broad area, without growing so long as to try the patience of the subjects, it was necessary to achieve a high degree of efficiency. The task was to formulate items which would cover as much as possible of the many-sided phenomenon in question. Since each of the trends to be measured was conceived as having numerous components or aspects, there could be no duplication of items; instead it was required that each item express a different feature – and where possible, several features – of the total system. The degree to which items within a scale will »hang together« statistically, and thus give evidence that a single, unified trait is being measured, depends primarily upon the surface similarity of the items – the degree to which they all say the same thing. The present items, obviously, could not be expected to cohere in this fashion; all that could be required statistically of them was that they correlate to a reasonable degree with the total scale. Conceivably, a single component of one of the present systems could be regarded as itself a relatively general trend, the precise measurement of which would require the use of numerous more specific items. As indicated above, however, such concern with highly specific, statistically »pure« factors was put aside, in favor of an attempt to gain a dependable estimate of an over-all system, one which could then be related to other over-all systems in an approach to the totality of major trends within the individual.
One might inquire why, if we wish to know the intensity of some ideological pattern – such as anti-Semitism – within the individual, we do not ask him directly, after defining what we mean. The answer, in part, is that the phenomenon to be measured is so complex that a single response would not go very far toward revealing the important differences among individuals. Moreover, anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism, and politico-economic reactionism or radicalism are topics about which many people are not prepared to speak with complete frankness. Thus, even at this surface ideological level it was necessary to employ a certain amount of indirectness. Subjects were never told what was the particular concern of the questionnaire, but only that they were taking part in a »survey of opinions about various issues of the day.« To support this view of the proceedings, items belonging to a particular scale were interspersed with items from other scales in the questionnaire. It was not possible, of course, to avoid statements prejudicial to minority groups, but care was taken in each case to allow the subject »a way out,« that is to say, to make it possible for him to agree with such a statement while maintaining the belief that he was not »prejudiced« or »undemocratic.«
Whereas the scales for measuring surface ideological trends conform, in general, with common practice in sociopsychological research, the scale for measuring potentially anti-democratic trends in the personality represents a new departure. The procedure was to bring together in a scale items which, by hypothesis and by clinical experience, could be regarded as »giveaways« of trends which lay relatively deep within the personality, and which constituted a disposition to express spontaneously (on a suitable occasion), or to be influenced by, fascist ideas.
The statements in this scale were not different in form from those which made up the surface ideology scales; they were direct expressions of opinion, of attitudes, or of value with respect to various areas of social living – but areas not usually touched upon in systematic presentations of a politico-socioeconomic point of view. Always interspersed with statements from other scales, they conveyed little or nothing to the subject as to the nature of the real question being pursued. They were, in the main, statements so designed as to serve as rationalizations for irrational tendencies. Two statements included in this scale were the following: (a) »Nowadays with so many different kinds of people moving around so much and mixing together so freely, one has to be especially careful to protect himself against infection and disease« and (b) »Homosexuality is an especially rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished.« That people who agree with one of these statements show a tendency to agree with the other, and that people who agree with these two statements tend to agree with open antidemocratic statements, e.g., that members of some minority group are basically inferior, is hardly to be explained on the basis of any obvious logical relation among the statements. It seems necessary, rather, to conceive of some underlying central trend which expresses itself in these different ways. Different people might, of course, give the same response to a statement such as the above for different reasons; since it was necessary to give the statements at least a veneer of rationality, it was natural to expect that the responses of some people would be determined almost entirely by the rational aspect rather than by some underlying emotional disposition. For this reason it was necessary to include a large number of scale items and to be guided by the general trend of response rather than by the response to a single statement; for a person to be considered potentially antidemocratic in his underlying dynamic structure, he had to agree with a majority of these scale items.
The development of the present scale proceeded in two ways: first, by finding or formulating items which, though they had no manifest connection with open antidemocratic expressions, were nevertheless highly correlated with them; and second, by demonstrating that these »indirect« items were actually expressions of antidemocratic potential within the personality as known from intensive clinical study.
3. Projective Questions, like most other projective techniques, present the subject with ambiguous and emotionally toned stimulus material. This material is designed to allow a maximum of variation in response from one subject to another and to provide channels through which relatively deep personality processes may be expressed. The questions are not ambiguous in their formal structure, but in the sense that the answers are at the level of emotional expression rather than at the level of fact and the subject is not aware of their implications. The responses always have to be interpreted, and their significance is known when their meaningful relations to other psychological facts about the subject have been demonstrated. One projective question was, »What would you do if you had only six months to live, and could do anything you wanted?« An answer to this question was not regarded as a statement of what the subject would probably do in actuality, but rather an expression having to do with his values, conflicts, and the like. We asked ourselves if this expression was not in keeping with those elicited by other projective questions and by statements in the personality scale.
Numerous projective questions were tried in the early stages of the study, and from among them eight were selected for use with most of the larger groups of subjects: they were the questions which taken together gave the broadest view of the subject's personality trends and correlated most highly with surface ideological patterns.
b. CLINICAL TECHNIQUES, 1. The interview was divided roughly into an ideological section and a clinical-genetic section. In the first section the aim was to induce the subject to talk as spontaneously and as freely as possible about various broad ideological topics: politics, religion, minority groups, income, and vocation. Whereas in the questionnaire the subject was limited to the topics there presented and could express himself only by means of the rating scheme offered, here it was important to know what topics he would bring up of his own accord and with what intensity of feeling he would spontaneously express himself. As indicated above, this material afforded a means for insuring that the questionnaire, in its revised forms, more or less faithfully represented »what people were saying« – the topics that were on their minds and the forms of expression that came spontaneously to them – and provided a valid index of antidemocratic trends. The interview covered, of course, a much wider variety of topics, and permitted the expression of more elaborated and differentiated opinions, attitudes, and values, than did the questionnaire. Whereas the attempt was made to distill from the interview material what seemed to be of the most general significance and to arrange it for inclusion in the questionnaire, there was material left over to be exploited by means of individual case studies, qualitative analyses, and crudely quantitative studies of the interview material by itself.
The clinical-genetic section of the interview sought to obtain, first, more factual material about the subject's contemporary situation and about his past than could be got from the questionnaire; second, the freest possible expressions of personal feelings, of beliefs, wishes, and fears concerning himself and his situation and concerning such topics as parents, siblings, friends, and sexual relationships; and third, the subject's conceptions of his childhood environment and of his childhood self.
The interview was conducted in such a way that the material gained from it would permit inferences about the deeper layers of the subject's personality. The technique of the interview will be described in detail later. Suffice it to say here that it followed the general pattern of a psychiatric interview that is inspired by a dynamic theory of personality. The interviewer was aided by a comprehensive interview schedule which underwent several revisions during the course of the study, as experience taught what were the most significant underlying questions and what were the most efficient means for evoking material bearing upon them.
The interview material was used for estimation of certain common variables lying within the theoretical framework of the study but not accessible to the other techniques. Interview material also provided the main basis for individual case studies, bearing upon the interrelationships among all the significant factors operating within the antidemocratic individual.
2. The Thematic Apperception Test is a well-known projective technique in which the subject is presented with a series of dramatic pictures and asked to tell a story about each of them. The material he produces can, when interpreted, reveal a great deal about his underlying wishes, conflicts, and mechanisms of defense. The technique was modified slightly to suit the present purposes. The material was analyzed quantitatively in terms of psychological variables which are found widely in the population and which were readily brought into relation with other variables of the study. As a part of the case study of an individual an analysis in terms of more unique personality variables was made, the material here being considered in close conjunction with findings from the interview.
Though designed to approach different aspects of the person, the several techniques actually were closely related conceptually one to another. All of them permitted quantification and interpretation in terms of variables which fall within a unified theoretical system. Sometimes two techniques yielded measures of the same variables, and sometimes different techniques were focused upon different variables. In the former case the one technique gave some indication of the validity of the other; in the latter case the adequacy of a technique could be gauged by its ability to produce measures that were meaningfully related to all the others. Whereas a certain amount of repetition was necessary to insure validation, the main aim was to fill out a broad framework and achieve a maximum of scope.
The theoretical approach required in each case either that a new technique be designed from the ground up or that an existing one be modified to suit the particular purpose. At the start, there was a theoretical conception of what was to be measured and certain sources – to be described later – which could be drawn upon in devising the original questionnaire form and the preliminary interview schedule. Each technique then evolved as the study progressed. Since each was designed specifically for this study, they could be changed at will as understanding increased, and since an important purpose of the study was the development and testing of effective instruments for diagnosing potential fascism, there was no compulsion to repeat without modification a procedure just in order to accumulate comparable data. So closely interrelated were the techniques that what was learned from any one of them could be applied to the improvement of any other. Just as the clinical techniques provided a basis for enriching the several parts of the questionnaire, so did the accumulating quantitative results indicate what ought to be concentrated upon in the interview; and just as the analysis of scale data suggested the existence of underlying variables which might be approached by means of projective techniques, so did the responses on projective techniques suggest items for inclusion in the scales.
The evolution of techniques was expressed both in expansion and in contraction. Expansion was exemplified in the attempt to bring more and more aspects of antidemocratic ideology into the developing picture and in the attempt to explore enough aspects of the potentially antidemocratic personality so that there was some grasp of the totality. Contraction took place continuously in the quantitative procedures as increasing theoretical clarity permitted a boiling down so that the same crucial relationships could be demonstrated with briefer techniques.
C. Procedures in the Collection of Data
1. The Groups Studied
a. THE BEGINNING WITH COLLEGE STUDENTS. There were enough practical reasons alone to determine that the present study, which at the beginning had limited resources and limited objectives, should start with college students as research subjects: they were available for the asking, whether singly or in groups, they would cooperate willingly, and they could be reached for retesting without much difficulty. At the same time, other considerations favored the use of college students in a study of ideology. In the first place, the intellectual and educational level is high enough so that there needed to be relatively little restriction with respect to the number and nature of issues that might be raised – a very important matter in a study that emphasized breadth and inclusiveness. One could be fairly certain that college students had opinions about most of the various topics to be considered. In the second place, there could be relative certainty that all the subjects understood the terms of the questions in the same way and that the same responses had uniform significance. In the third place, however large a population one might be able to sample he would probably find that most of his generalizations had in any case to be limited to various relatively homogeneous subclassifications of the total group studied; college students form one group that is relatively quite homogeneous with respect to factors that might be expected to influence ideology. And they represent an important sector of the population, both through their family connections and through their prospective leadership in the community.
It is obvious, however, that a study which used only college students as subjects would be seriously limited in its general significance. Of what larger population could a group of students at a state university be regarded as an adequate sample? Would findings on this sample hold for all the students at this university? For college students generally? For young people of the middle class? It depends upon what kind of generalization is to be made. Generalizations about the distribution of particular opinions or about the average amount of agreement with this or that statement – the kind of information sought in poll studies – could hardly go beyond the students at the university where the survey was made. Results from an Eastern university or from a privately endowed institution might be quite different. The present concern, however, was not so much with questions of distribution as with questions of relationship. For example, there was less interest in what per cent of the general population would agree that »labor unions have grown too powerful« and that »there are too many Jews in government agencies« than in whether or not there was a general relationship between these two opinions. For the study of how opinions, attitudes, and values are organized within the individual, college students had a great deal to offer, particularly in the early stages of the work where the emphasis was upon improving techniques and obtaining first approximations of general relationships. This work could proceed without hindrance so long as the factors to be studied were present, and varied sufficiently widely from one individual to another. In this regard, the limitations of the college sample were that the relatively high intellectual and educational level decreased the number of extremely prejudiced individuals, and that some of the factors which were presumed to influence prejudice were rarely or never present.
These considerations made it necessary to study various other groups of subjects. As it turned out, the strength of the various ideological trends was found to vary widely from one group to another, while the relationships found in the college group were very similar to those found elsewhere.
b. THE GENERAL NONCOLLEGE POPULATION FROM WHICH OUR SUBJECTS WERE DRAWN. When it became possible through increased resources to expand the scope of the study, there began an attempt to obtain as subjects a wide variety of adult Americans. The aim was to examine people who possessed in different degrees as many as possible of the sociological variables presumed to be relevant to the study – political, religious, occupational, income, and social group memberships. A list of all the groups (college and noncollege) from whom questionnaires were collected is given in Table 1 (I).
Table 1 (I)
Groups From Whom Questionnaires Were Collecteda
No. of
Cases
I. Form 78 (January to May, 1945)
University of California Public Speaking Class
Women 140
University of California Public Speaking Class Men 52
University of California Extension Psychology
Class (adult women) 40
Professional Women (public school teachers,
social workers, public health nurses)
(San Francisco area) 63
Total 295
University of Oregon Student Women 47
University of Oregon and University 54
of California Student Women
University of Oregon and University 57
of California Student Men
Oregon Service Club Men (Kiwanis, Lions, 68
Rotary Clubs) (Total questionnaire) 68
Oregon Service Club Men (Form A only)b 60
Total 286
III. Forms 45 and 40
(November, 1945, to June, 1946)
A. Form 45
University of California Extension Testing Class 59
(adult women)
Psychiatric Clinic Patients (men and women) (Langley
Porter Clinic of the University of California) 121
San Quentin State Prison Inmates (men) 110
Total 243
B. Both Forms 45 and 40
Alameda School for Merchant Marine Officers (men) 343
U.S. Employment Service Veterans (men) 106
Total 449
C. Form 40
Working-Class Women:
California Labor School 19
United Electrical Workers Union (C.I.O.) 8
Office Workers 11
Longshoremen and Warehousemen (I.L.W.U.)
Federal Housing Project Workers 5
53
Working-Class Men:
United Electrical Workers Union (C.I.O.) 12
California Labor School 15
Longshoremen and Warehousemen (I.L.W.U.)
(new members) 26
United Seamen's Service 8
61
Middle-Class Women:
Parent-Teachers' Association 46
California Labor School (middle-class members) 11
Suburban Church Group 29
Unitarian Church Group 15
League of Women Voters 17
Upper Middle-Class Women's Club 36
154
Middle-Class Men:
Parent-Teachers' Association 29
Suburban Church Group 31
California Labor School (middle-class members) 9
69
California Service Club Men:
Kiwanis Club 40
Rotary Club 23
63
George Washington University Women Students 132
Los Angeles Men (classes at University of California and
University of Southern California, fraternity group, adult
evening class, parents of students, radio
writers group) 117
Los Angeles Women (same groupings as above) 130
Total 779
Total Forms 45 and 40 1,518
Overall Total of All Forms 2,099
a In most cases each group taking the questionnaire was treated separately for statistical purposes, e.g., San Quentin Prison Inmates, Psychiatric Clinic Men. However, some groups were too small for this purpose and were therefore combined with other sociologically similar groups. When such combinations occurred, the composition of the overall group is indicated in the table.
b Form A included the scale for measuring potentially antidemocratic trends in the personality and half of the scale for measuring politico-economic conservatism.
The group within which a subject was functioning at the time he filled out the questionnaire was, of course, not necessarily the most important or representative of the various groups to which he belonged. The questionnaire itself was relied upon to give information about the group memberships deemed most relevant to the study, and subjects could be categorized on this basis regardless of the group through which the questionnaires were collected.
The emphasis throughout was upon obtaining different kinds of subjects, enough to insure wide variability of opinion and attitude and adequate coverage of the factors supposed to influence ideology. The subjects are in no sense a random sample of the noncollege population nor, since there was no attempt to make a sociological analysis of the community in which they lived, can they be regarded as a representative sample. The progress of the study was not in the direction of broadening the basis for generalization about larger populations, but rather toward the more intensive investigation of »key groups,« that is, groups having the characteristics that were most crucial to the problem at hand. Some groups were chosen because their sociological status was such that they could be expected to play a vital role in a struggle centering around social discrimination, e.g., veterans, service clubs, women's clubs. Other groups were chosen for intensive study because they presented extreme manifestations of the personality variables deemed most crucial for the potentially antidemocratic individual, e.g., prison inmates, psychiatric patients.
Save for a few key groups, the subjects were drawn almost exclusively from the middle socioeconomic class. It was discovered fairly early in the study that the investigation of lower classes would require different instruments and different procedures from those developed through the use of college students and, hence, this was a task that had best be postponed.
Groups in which there was a preponderance of minority group members were avoided, and when minority group members happened to belong to an organization which cooperated in the study, their questionnaires were excluded from the calculations. It was not that the ideological trends in minority groups were considered unimportant; it was rather that their investigation involved special problems which lay outside the scope of the present study.
The great majority of the subjects of the study lived within the San Francisco Bay area. Concerning this community it may be said that the population increased rapidly during the decade preceding the outbreak of World War II, so that a large proportion were newcomers from all parts of the nation. During the war, when the area took on the aspect of a boom town, the influx was greatly intensified and, hence, it is probable that a large number of the present subjects were people who had recently come from other states.
Two large groups were obtained in the Los Angeles area, several smaller groups in Oregon, and one group in Washington, D.C.
Unless a person had at least a grammar school education, it was very difficult, if not impossible, for him to fill out the questionnaire properly – to understand the issues set forth in the scales and the instructions for marking the forms. The average educational level of the subjects in the study is about the twelfth grade, there being roughly as many college graduates as there were subjects who had not completed high school. It is important to note that the present samples are heavily weighted with younger people, the bulk of them falling between the ages of twenty and thirty-five.
It will be apparent that the subjects of the study taken all together would provide a rather inadequate basis for generalizing about the total population of this country. The findings of the study may be expected to hold fairly well for non-Jewish, white, native-born, middle-class Americans. Where the same relationships appeared repeatedly as different groups – e.g., college students, women's clubs, prison inmates – came under scrutiny, generalizations may be made with the most certainty. When sections of the population not sampled in the present study are made the subjects of research, it is to be expected that most of the relationships reported in the following chapters will still hold – and that additional ones will be found.
2. The Distribution and Collection of Questionnaires
In approaching a group from whom questionnaires were to be collected, the first step was to secure the cooperation of the group leadership. This was never difficult when the leader was liberal in his outlook, e.g., the instructor of a class in public speaking, the psychologist at a Maritime School, a minister in the inner councils of a men's service club. The purposes and procedures of the study were explained to him fully, and he then presented the project of filling out the questionnaires to his group. When the group leadership was conservative, the procedure was more difficult. If it were made known that the study had something to do with social discrimination, it was not unusual for great interest in this »important problem« to be expressed at first and then for one delay to follow another until hope of obtaining responses from the group in question had to be abandoned. Among people of this type there appeared to be a conviction that it was best to let sleeping dogs lie, that the best approach to the »race problem« was not to »stir up anything.« A more successful approach to conservative leaders was to present the whole project as a survey of general public opinion, »like a Gallup poll,« being carried forward by a group of scientists at the University, and to count upon the variety and relative mildness of the scale items to prevent undue alarm.
In collecting questionnaires from classes of students, whether in regular sessions of the University, in summer school, or in university extension, it was usual for the instructor of the class to handle the whole proceeding himself. In other instances it was usually necessary to combine the administration of the questionnaire with a talk to the group by a member of the study staff. He gave the instructions for filling out the questionnaires, aided in their collection, and then gave a talk on »Gauging Public Opinion,« coming only as close to the real issues of the study as he judged possible without arousing the resistances of his audience.
Whether the group was judged to be liberal or not, the questionnaire was always presented to it as a public opinion inventory – not as a study of prejudice. The instructions given to the groups follow:
Survey of General Public Opinion: Instructions
We are trying to find out what the general public feels and thinks about a number of important social questions.
We are sure you will find the enclosed survey interesting. You will find in it many questions and social issues which you have thought about, read about in newspapers and magazines, and heard about on the radio.
This is not an intelligence test nor an Information test. There are no »right« or »wrong« answers. The best answer is your personal opinion. You can be sure that, whatever your opinion may be on a certain issue, there will be many people who agree, many who disagree. And this is what we want to find out: how is public opinion really divided on each of these socially important topics?
It must be emphasized that the sponsors of this survey do not necessarily agree or disagree with the statements in it. We have tried to cover a great many points of view. We agree with some of the statements, and disagree with others. Similarly, you will probably find yourself agreeing strongly with some statements, disagreeing just as strongly with others, and being perhaps more neutral about still others.
We realize that people are very busy nowadays, and we don't want to take too much of your time. All that we ask is that you:
(a) Read each statement carefully and mark it according to your first reaction. It isn't necessary to take a lot of time for any one question.
(b) Answer every question.
(c) Give your personal point of view. Don't talk the questions over with anyone until you have finished.
(d) Be as sincere, accurate, and complete as possible in the limited time and space.
This survey works just like a Gallup Poll or an election. As in any other secret ballot, the »voters« who fill it out do not have to give their names.
The cooperation of the groups, once they were presented with the questionnaire, was excellent, at least 90 per cent of those present usually handing in completed questionnaires. Some members of each group were, of course, absent on the day the questionnaire was administered, but since there was never any advance notice about this part of the program, there is no reason to believe that the responses of these absentees would have been generally different from those of the rest of the group. Subjects who were present but failed to hand in completed questionnaires fall almost entirely into two classes: those who made no attempt to cooperate and those who handed in incomplete questionnaires. It is to be suspected that the former were more antidemocratic than the average of their group, while the slowness or carelessness of the latter is probably of no significance for ideology.
There was one attempt to collect questionnaires by mail. Over 200 questionnaires with complete instructions were mailed to teachers and nurses, together with a letter soliciting their cooperation and covering letters from their superintendents. The return was a disappointing 20 per cent, and this sample was strongly biased in the direction of low scores on the scales for measuring antidemocratic trends.
3. The Selection of Subjects for Intensive Clinical Study
With a few exceptions, the subjects from a given group who were interviewed and given the Thematic Apperception Test were chosen from among the 25 per cent obtaining the highest and the 25 per cent obtaining the lowest scores (high and low quartiles) on the Ethnocentrism scale. This scale, it seemed, would give the best initial measure of antidemocratic tendencies.
If the group from which subjects were to be selected was one which held regular meetings, as was usually the case, the procedure was to collect the questionnaires at one meeting, to obtain the scale scores and decide upon suitable interviewees, and then to solicit further cooperation at the next meeting. In the few cases where the use of a second meeting was impossible, the request for interviewees was made at the time of administering the questionnaire, those willing to be interviewed being asked to indicate how they might be reached. In order to disguise the basis of selection and the purpose of the clinical study, the groups were told that the attempt was being made to carry on a more detailed discussion of opinions and ideas with a few of their number – about 10 per cent – and that people representing the various kinds and degrees of response found in the group were being asked to come for interviews.
Anonymity was to be insured for the Interviews as well as for the group survey, if the subject so desired. In order to arrange this, subjects desired for individual study were referred to by the birth date which they had entered on their questionnaires. This could not be done, however, in those cases where subjects were asked to signify at the time of filling out the questionnaire whether or not they were willing to be interviewed. This may have been one reason why the response in these instances was poor. But there were other reasons why subjects of these groups were difficult to interview, and it is to be noted that the great majority of those secured under the birth date arrangement showed no concern about anonymity once their appointments had been made.
Subjects were paid $3.00 for the two to three hours they spent in the clinical sessions. In offering this inducement at the time of the request for interviewees, it was pointed out that this was the only way to insure that the staff of the Study would not be conscience-stricken for taking so much valuable time. The arrangement did indeed have this effect, but what was more important, it was a considerable aid to securing suitable subjects: most of those who scored low on the Ethnocentrism scale would have cooperated anyway, being somewhat attracted to psychology and willing to give their time in a »good cause,« but many of the high scorers made it plain that the money was the determining consideration.
In selecting subjects for clinical study the aim was to examine a variety of high and low scorers. Considerable variety was assured by the device of taking a few from most of the different groups studied. Within a given group it was possible to achieve further variety with respect to group memberships and scores on the other scales. There was no attempt, however, to arrange that the percentage of the interviewed subjects having each of various group memberships was the same as that which held for the group from which they were drawn. The question of how well the high and low scorers who were interviewed represent all those who scored high or low on the Ethnocentrism scale is taken up in Chapter IX.[1]
Very few »middle« subjects – the 50 per cent whose scores fall between the high and the low quartiles – were interviewed. It was believed that for the understanding of antidemocratic trends the most important first step was to determine the factors which most clearly distinguished one extreme from the other. In order properly to compare two groups it is necessary to have a minimum of thirty to forty subjects in each group, and since men and women, as it turned out, presented somewhat different problems and had to be treated separately, the study of high- vs. low-scoring men and the study of high- vs. low-scoring women involved four statistical groupings totaling 150. To conduct more interviews than this was for practical reasons impossible. The intensive study of representative middle scorers should form a central part of any future research along the lines of the present study. Since they are more numerous than either extreme, it is especially important to know their democratic or antidemocratic potentialities. The impression gained from a few interviews with middle scorers, and from the examination of many of their questionnaires, is that they are not indifferent or ignorant with respect to the issues of the scales, or lacking in the kinds of motivation or personality traits found in the extremes. In short, they are in no sense categorically different; they are, as it were, made of the same stuff but in different combinations.
Fußnoten
[1 Else Frenkel-Brunswik, »The Interviews as an Approach to the Prejudiced Personality,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 291–336.]