Social Dominance Orientation and the Ideological Legitimization of Social Policy1 FELICIA PRATT0,2 LISAM. STALLWORTH, AND SAHR CONWAY-LANZ Stanford University
Much of politics is involved with the distribution of resources and the regulation of intergroup relations. Social dominance theory posits that social ideologies provide social justification for policies that have unequal effects on different social groups. In the present studies, we examine the mediating role that ideologies have in transforming people’s general orientation toward group inequality into policy support. Using data from 5 samples, we offer evidence that social dominance orientation orients people to support discriminatory ideologies, which in turn influence support for policies. Support for the theoretical model was shown in studies of both long-standing social policy attitudes, such as toward social welfare and military programs, and of unfolding political events, including Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court, the Persian Gulf War, and reinstitution of the death penalty in California.
Debates over policies often have the form “who deserves what.” For example, during the 1994 United States election campaign, politicians and citizens argued about whether illegal immigrants are entitled to public services, whether single mothers are worthy of public assistance, whether Social Security should be taken away from people who earned it, and whether criminals deserve longer prison terms. To define who is entitled to, or has a right to, positive or negative social goods, categorical distinctions among people are made. To justify why certain policies are right, reasons for discriminating among types of people are provided. In other words, social ideologies both define group membership and imply how different groups of people should be allocated social resources. Social dominance theory therefore postulates that ideologies provide justification for policy support, enabling people to provide reasons for their attitudes toward policies that reflect their values about intergroup relations. ‘Portions of this research were presented at the 1993 annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology and the 1992 meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomic by Felicia Pratto and the 1994 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association by Lisa Stallworth. *Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Felicia Pratto, who is now at the Department of Psychology U-20,406 Babbidge Road, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269- 1020. e-mail:
[email protected].
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1998, 28, 20, pp. 1853-1875. Copyright 0 1998 by V. H. Winston 8 Son, Inc. All rights reserved.
1854 PRAi70 ET AL. Just as there is variance of opinion concerning particular social ideologies and social policies, so too do people differ on their fundamental stance towards intergroup relations, which we call social dominance orieritation (SDO). At one end of the SDO continuum are those who support group dominance; at the other, those who support group equality. We have devised facevalid, cross-temporally stable, internally reliable, and balanced scales to measure individuals’ levels of SDO with items such as “Some groups of people are simply not the equals of others” and “Group equality should be o u r ideal” (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Measures of SDO are conceptually and empirically distinguishable from authoritarianism, conservatism, interpersonal dominance, and other personality measures (Pratto, Liu, et al., 1998; Pratto et al., 1994), and predict occupational role (Pratto, Stallworth, Sidanius, & Siers, 1997; Sidanius, Liu, Pratto, & Shaw, 1994) and vote choice (Pratto, Stallworth, & Sidanius. 1997). Most important for the present research on ideological justification, we consider SDO a psychological orientation, rather than a specific ideology. Two kinds of evidence support this contention. First, SDO correlates with different prejudicial ideologies in different cultural contexts, such as anti-Black racism, cultural elitism, nationalism, and sexism in the United States (Pratto et al., 1994); fatalism and Confucian sexism in Taiwan; and Zionism and sexism in Israel (Pratto, Liu, et al., 1998). Second, SDO scale scores predict how much people discriminate against out-groups in minimal groups and implicit discrimination experiments (Pratto, Shih, & Orton, 1998; Sidanius, Pratto, & Mitchell, 1994), in which no ideology is available to justify discrimination. In the present research, we tested social dominance theory’s theory of ideological justification on contemporary policy attitudes. In five samples, we assessed SDO and attitudes toward a variety of social ideologies and policies. We used structural equation models to test the fit of a theoretical model of ideological justification derived from social dominance theory. The central part of the model suggests that SDO should relate positively to support for ideologies that maintain or increase social inequality and negatively to support for ideologies that would decrease social inequality. Such ideologies in turn influence policy attitudes so that ideologies entirely mediate the influence SDO has on policy attitudes. In addition, our model explains the robust gender differences in support for group-relevant policies such as social-welfare programs and militarism as stemming from gender differences on SDO (cf. Pratto, Stallworth, & Sidanius, 1997). Thus, in the theoretical models, policy attitudes are predicted by relevant social ideologies, which are predicted by SDO, which is predicted by gender. We also tested whether the theoretical model accounts for gender differences in policy support by adding a direct path from participant gender to policy attitudes, and comparing the fit
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of these two nested models. Because conservatism is such a general ideological orientation, perhaps consisting of many ideologies (Wilson, 1973), we allowed it to predict the other ideologies as well. The method we use here has several advantages over previous work on social attitudes. First, we do not simply predict that a mass of variables will all correlate with one another. Rather, we compare data to a model that specifies what relationships are necessary to understand why certain psychological measures, ideologies, and policy attitudes go together. Second, we measure attitudes toward policies separately from ideological measures so that we can directly test whether people who support particular ideologies also support particular policies. Third, we measure support for several specific ideologies, including meritocracy, nationalism, racism, and so forth, rather than inferring people’s ideological stance from covariance among policy attitudes, as considerable research on conservatism has done (e.g., Eysenck, 1944; Kerlinger, 1984; Ray, 1983; Wilson, 1973). Fourth, we directly measured the psychological variable we hypothesize underlies these attitudes, rather than inferring its existence from the correlations among the attitude measures. When this is done in conservatism research, it is usually done by asking people to identify themselves on a scale from very liberal to very conservative (e.g., Sniderman, Piazza, Tetlock, & Kendrick, 1991). Because we could find no current content measures of conservatism that are not essentially policy measures, we also used self-identified conservatism. Fifth, the present work uses wellvalidated measures of SDO, rather than the proxy measures used by Sidanius and Pratto (1 993a, 1993b) and Sidanius, Devereux, and Pratto (1 992). The present work substantially extends previous analyses of these data in that here we tested the relationships between belief in legitimizing ideologies and policy support and the fit of the entire model, rather than just correlations between SDO scale scores and both ideology and policy attitudes (Pratto et al., 1994). The plausibility of our theoretical model can be strengthened if the data fail to fit an important alternative model. We devised an alternative model based on two considerations. Because both laypeople and researchers have the expectation that liberalism/conservatism is a general and robust predictor of political attitudes, in the alternative model, we allowed self-identified conservatism to serve as the terminal value in a position analogous to SDO in the theoretical model. We also explicitly tested whether SDO should serve as a legitimizing ideology (predicting policy attitudes directly in the alternative model), rather than serve as an underlying predictor of ideologies, as in the theoretical model. Thus, in the alternative model, conservatism predicted SDO, SDO predicted the other ideologies, and both SDO and the other ideologies predicted policy attitudes.
1856 PRATTO ET AL. Method Overview
Participants were college students in northern California who were told that their responses were confidential and anonymous (see Pratto et al., 1994, for a description of the samples). Responses for the ideology and policy attitude measures were given on 7-point scales ranging from 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive). Items from different scales were intermixed, except where noted. Subjects completed the written questionnaires at their own pace, except in Sample 4, which is described in the Results section. On a separate demographic questionnaire, participants were asked to rate themselves on foreign-policy issues, on economic issues, and on social issues on a scale that ranged from 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative). The averaged responses to the three questions formed an index of conservatism. All respondents completed the 14-item S D 0 5 Scale (Pratto et al., 1994). Design and Measures
Items and reliabilities for the ideology scales are shown in Table 1, and items and reliabilities for the policy attitude scales are shown in Table 2. We next explain why we chose the policies we did and the ideologies we hypothesized to help justify them. Supporr for Military Programs
The purpose of a military is to create or defend its country’s dominant position with respect to other nations, so we assessed support for military programs as one of the long-standing policy issues. Because the in-group in this case is the nation, nationalism is the most obviously relevant legitimizing ideology. In Sample 1 (measured in Fall 1990), 463 undergraduates at San Jose State University (SJSU) completed a 6-item nationalism scale based on Kosterman and Feshbach’s (1 989) scale, the SDO scale (a = .83), the conservatism scale (a = .69), and indicated their attitudes toward military programs over which funding was being debated. We also tested our model concerning support for the Gulf War. The first week of January 1991 we administered the SDO scale (a = .84), the conservatism scale (a = .89), and the nationalism scale previously described to part of the Psychology Department subject pool at Stanford University (Sample 2). Just after the United States and its allies had begun bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991, we surveyed the attitudes of 117 members of the subject pool toward going to war against Iraq. Participants indicated how much they agreed or disagreed with statements concerning the war on a scale from
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Table 1 Items on the Legitimizing Myths Scales Nationalism Scale (Sample 1, a = .68; Sample 2, a = .SO; Sample 3, a = .78) In view of America’s moral and material superiority, it is only right that we should have the biggest say in deciding United Nations policy. This country must continue to lead the “Free World.” We should do anything necessary to increase the power of our country, even if it means war. Sometimes it is necessary for our country to make war on other countries for their own good. The important thing for the U.S. foreign aid program is to see to it that the U S . gains a political advantage. Generally, the more influence America has on other nations, the better off they are. Noblesse Oblige Scale (Sample 3, a
=
.40)
As a country’s wealth increases, more of its resources should be channeled to
the poor. Giving to others usually benefits the givers as well. Those with more resources have more obligationstoward their fellow human beings. Those who are well off can’t be expected to take care of everyone else.* Social charities just create dependency.* Anti-Black Racism Scale (Sample 3, a A Black president.* Racial integration. * White superiority. Blacks are inherently inferior. Civil rights activists.*
= .60)
Meritocracy Scale (Sample 4, a = .32) People at the top are there because they are the most capable. Competition is a good way to weed out those less qualified. Belief in Retribution (Sample 5 , a = .74) Society does not have the right to get revenge for murder.* For a terrible crime, there should be a terrible punishment. Even the worst criminal should be considered for mercy.* (table continues)
1858 PRATTO ET AL. Table 1 (Continued) Those who hurt others deserve to be hurt in return. Punishment should fit the crime. Belief in Deterrence (Sample 5, a
= .87)
The death penalty deters crime. The death penalty does nothing to solve the crime problem.* Criminals think twice before committing a crime that carries the death penalty. There is no evidence that the death penalty reduces crime.* Capital punishment has never been effective in preventing crime.* Crime would decrease if we used the death penalty more often. There are fewer murders right after an execution. If the death penalty were abolished, the crime rate would not change.* Note. * indicates item was reverse coded. Participants indicated how they felt about each item from 1 (very negative) to 7 (veryposifive).
1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). We also tested the relationship between nationalism and support for the Gulf War in Sample 3, consisting of 1 15 SJSU undergraduates, measured in February 1992. Social Welfare Programs Since the New Deal, social welfare policies have been seen as a way of distributing social and public resources to disadvantaged groups, such as the poor, women, elderly, Blacks, and children, so we assessed support for several social welfare programs in Sample 3. We felt that noblesse oblige was a hierarchy-attenuating ideology in support of such programs. Given that the political debate over welfare, affirmative action, and other public programs often has a racial undercurrent, if not being overtly racial, we also measured anti-Black racism as a hierarchy-enhancing ideology. Political Appointments Political parties and candidates also can represent group-relevant issues, so SDO may predict candidate support through such means, as it did in the 1992 presidential election (Pratto, Stallworth, & Sidanius, 1997). We administered the SDO scale (a = .89), a meritocracy scale, and a conservatism scale (a = .71) to the Stanford Psychology Department subject pool in late September 1991. A little over 2 weeks later, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on President Bush’s nomination of Clarence
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Table 2 Items on Policy Scales Militaryprograrns (Sample 1, a Decreased defense spending* Strategic defense initiative B-2 (Stealth) bomber
= .67)
War against Iraq (Sample 2, a = 3 7 ) The U.S. really had no choice but to use military force against Iraq. The U.N. should have allowed more time for the economic sanctions against Iraq to take effect before resorting to war.* The U.S. should not be using military force against Iraq.* Saddam Hussein must be stopped by any means necessary-including nuclear weapons. The U.N. coalition should not participate in any military action that will kill civilians, no matter what.* It is un-American to protest Operation Desert Storm. President Bush should be given whatever power he needs to conduct war. The U.N. coalition should cease bombing Iraq and offer to negotiate.* I’d be willing to pay higher taxes to finance the war in the Gulf. War against Iraq (Sample 3 , a = 34) The U.S. had no choice but to begin bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991. Bombing the cities of Iraq was justified. I was proud of my country for fighting Iraq. The U.N. coalition really taught Hussein a lesson. Once there were 250,000 U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region, it would have been embarrassing not to “use” them in war. Strict control of the press coverage of the Iraq war was necessary. In all, the press reports we received about the war were fair and impartial. The military response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait will probably discourage others from invading countries. Social welfareprograrns (Sample 3 , a Govemment-sponsored health care Better support for the homeless Greater aid to poor children Guaranteed jobs for all
= .68)
(table continues)
1860 PRATTO ET AL. Table 2 (Continued) Reduced benefits for the unemployed* Increased taxation of the rich More support for early education Free school lunches Low income housing Arresting the homeless* Favored executing Harris (Sample 5, a = .96) I felt that Robert Alton Harris’ death sentence should have been commuted to life in prison without possibility of parole.* I felt that Robert Alton Harris should have been executed. Support for death penalty (Sample 5, a = .95) There should be regular (e.g., monthly) executions in California until all those on death row have been executed. Capital punishment is never justified.* Capital punishment should be used more often than it is. I support the use of capital punishment. I favor the death penalty. No offense is so serious that it deserves to be punished by death.* I favor a law which permits the execution of convicted murderers. I think that we should have a mandatory death penalty for convicted murderers. Execution of criminals is a disgrace to a civilized society.* We must have capital punishment for some crimes. Note. * indicates item was reverse coded.
Thomas, a conservative African American, to the Supreme Court. Just before the scheduled vote, it was reported that Thomas had sexually harassed some of his former subordinates. One of these persons, Anita Hill, was subpoenaed, and Hill, Thomas, and several of Thomas’ associates testified over a weekend for 2 additional days. The next day, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate, and that day and the 2 days following (October 15- 17, 199 l), we telephoned participants who had completed the prior scales and asked them four opinion questions concerning this nomination. We reached 149 participants, with a response rate of 100%. Participants indicated their degree of agreement or disagreement with the statements: (a) After Thurgood Marshall’s retirement from the Supreme Court, it was good that George Bush appointed a Black person to the Court; (b) after Thurgood Marshall’s retirement from
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the Supreme Court, it was good that George Bush appointed a conservative to the Court; (c) if I were in the Senate, I would have voted in favor of Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court; and (d) Anita Hill was telling the truth in claiming that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her.
The Death Penalty The death penalty was struck down by the California Supreme Court in 1976 and reinstated by the legislature in 1977 over a gubernatorial veto. However, because of a series of judicially imposed moratoriums on the death penalty, no one had been executed by the state since 1967 (Uelmen, 1986) until March 1992, which is when we surveyed Sample 5. We administered the SDO scale (a = .93) and the conservatism scale (a = .78) to the Stanford Psychology Department subject pool during the first week of March. Two weeks later, on the 3 days following the execution of Robert Alton Harris, we administered an attitude survey concerning the death penalty on which participants indicated on a 7-point scale how strongly they agreed or disagreed with each item. We expected support for the death penalty to be positively related to SDO both because the policy discriminates between those who “deserve to live” and those who do not, and because it is used disproportionately against the poor and against African Americans (e.g., General Accounting Office, 1990). We employed conservatism and two other legitimizing ideologies specific to the death penalty: belief in retribution and belief that the death penalty deters crime. Our two policy attitude measures were general attitude toward the death penalty and support for the execution of Harris. Results Overview
In each sample, we tested the fit of the theoretical model, the nested comparison of the model adding direct paths from gender, and the alternative model using the variance-covariance matrix, maximum likelihood estimation in LISREL VI, and scale means as manifest variables. So that the alternative model would not be unfairly handicapped by not accounting for the gender difference on SDO, we included a path from gender to SDO as well. The theoretical and alternative models in each sample had the same degrees of freedom. In some samples, we added a path from gender to conservatism to achieve this. By comparing the theoretical and alternative models, we can tell whether conservatism or SDO best serves as a policy-legitimizing ideology or as a general predictor of ideological support.
1862 PRATTO ET AL.
GFI = .995 AGFI = .982
\
7Conurvatirm J NatiollPlism
Military
XZ (4. N = 459) = 36.98 D
