Rightwing personality traits

[Stella_Omega]

Rightwing authoritarianism (RWA) is one of two attitudinal constructs (along with social dominance orientation--SDO) that combine to account for a majority of group prejudice, which in turn is a major aspect of group identity politics. Both also correlate significantly with political conservatism. RWA is defined as the convergence of three attitudinal clusters:

* Authoritarian submission: A high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
* Authoritarian aggression: A general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.
* Conventionalism: A high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities.

As might be guessed, RWA is associated with a high degree of hostility toward outgroups, a key characteristic that correlates with findings discussed in the previous post in this series, indicating that hard core conservatism correlates with a strong resistance to power-sharing with various outgroups--blacks, Jews, Catholics, unions and women...

...Altemeyer explains that "right-wing'" means a "psychological sense of submitting to perceived authorities in one's life," and is not identified with a specific political ideology. In the Soviet Union, "right-wing" meant a sense of submitting to communist authorities, and Altemeyer presented research showing this was so. This is what his RWA (right-wing authoritarianism) scale measured. It is obviously related to the perpetuation of hierarchy, and the use of force to impose "order."

Read more here

 

[Dragonlipz]

Spot on and insightful article....it definitely backs up the John Stuart Mills quote "conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives..."

Thanks for turning me on (sixties slang) to the website.....

It's good to know that you're not just another pretty face....

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This isnt science, its opinion survey. Surveys test nothing because they arent experiments. Its not even statistics like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) is.

For surveys to have any utility they must be normed from a target population whose traits are confirmed and validated by tangible evidence....say Oscar winning actors, or Pulitzer winning writers or Grammy winning singers.

Most people classify themselves as genius and caring and nice, and it means nuthin without a fund of evidence.

So Dr. Bob pulls corn kernals from his ass and want s you to think he's an Iowa grain silo.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

What a bunch of bullshit!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

What a bunch of bullshit!

It is bullshit the way he does it.

If you want a valid survey you interview a large sample of your target population...say rock musician Grammy winners. You ask them plenty of questions, and every question they answer alike, you keep (where they differ you toss out). And you do this enough time till you have a large number of questions every Grammy winning rock star answers the same. Then you go looking for future rock stars on the street and in the malls and at the beach.

If these unknowns answer the questions identical to the Grammy winners, there's a strong correlation with future success as a performer-musician.

But you never norm your questions on shower warblers with air guitars.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I agree, it is not scientific at all. But-- you guys want to know what I see when I look at you, there it is.

You look like scary subhuman troglodytes.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STELLA

I cant speak for everyone but what you see is of no importance to me.

 

[stephen55]

Who's pulling something out of his ass.....???

This isnt science, its opinion survey. Surveys test nothing because they arent experiments. Its not even statistics like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) is.

For surveys to have any utility they must be normed from a target population whose traits are confirmed and validated by tangible evidence....say Oscar winning actors, or Pulitzer winning writers or Grammy winning singers.

Most people classify themselves as genius and caring and nice, and it means nuthin without a fund of evidence.

So Dr. Bob pulls corn kernals from his ass and want s you to think he's an Iowa grain silo.

There you have it. The Great Jay BJ has done it again!!. (Applause, cheers and wave that flag!!)
The guy who would be king has declared (again) that something is nonsense, this time because it shows RWA types in a bad light and BJ, the prototype RWA, knows that he is the light. But then, my argument is tautological.

The three factors Altemeyer identified were among the original nine factors, but he refined the questions defining the traits over time, developing a scale over time with stronger inter-item correlation. His findings are based primarily on research using questionnaires administered to his students, and secondarily to parents, but they have been administered to others as well, including members of a large number of American state legislatures. His uses standard correlation analysis, as well as comparisons and analysis focusing on those who score in the upper 25%, termed "High RWAs" or simply "Highs."

Kind of looks like standard social sciences type science to me.

And Jay, the MMPI isn't statistics. It's an individual test of personality and psychopathology traits, that is based on statistics. (Lots and lots of statistics.)
The results of the test give individual results. Don't conflate the two. You really like conflating but it's getting tedious.

 

[troglodytes]

I agree, it is not scientific at all. But-- you guys want to know what I see when I look at you, there it is.

You look like scary subhuman troglodytes.

Say what?

 

[stephen55]

this is really getting old.....

It is bullshit the way he does it.

If you want a valid survey you interview a large sample of your target population...say rock musician Grammy winners. You ask them plenty of questions, and every question they answer alike, you keep (where they differ you toss out). And you do this enough time till you have a large number of questions every Grammy winning rock star answers the same. Then you go looking for future rock stars on the street and in the malls and at the beach.

If these unknowns answer the questions identical to the Grammy winners, there's a strong correlation with future success as a performer-musician.

But you never norm your questions on shower warblers with air guitars.

Jay BJ is yet again conflating. This time, you're confusing (deliberately is my guess) how to do a survey with how to generate survey questions in the first place.

Robert Altemeyer knows what he's doing and so do you. The difference is he's not cheating.

 

[Stella_Omega]

STELLA

I cant speak for everyone but what you see is of no importance to me.

Damn right you can't speak for everyone. Yet you try to do so, all the time.
A significant trait of an RWA.

 

[rgraham666]

Personally I think Altemyer made a mistake by bringing 'Right' and 'Left' into it. Although he did note he was using his own definition of 'Right'.

As I've noted before differentiating between 'Right' and 'Left' authoritarianism is like differentiating between a water moccasin and a copperhead. Only of scientific interest. The important fact is that they are both venomous snakes and if you're bitten by either, you're fucked.

I was quite taken by this observation.

* Authoritarian aggression: A general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities.

The response by some of the people here demonstrated this point very nicely.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STEVIE BLUNDER

Ofcourse the MMPI is statistics; it was normed the same as the GATB (General Aptitudes Test Battery) and the military aptitudes battery. All of the MMPI was normed on specific disordered populations. I know this stuff, man.

All you know is how much Bayer kicks back to you for aspirin and sugar pill prescriptions. All an MD really needs to know is the date-time for his ROTARY CLUB meeting, and how much he gets for meds. And it helps if the MD has narcissistic personality disorder, so you can recognize each other.

 

[Stella_Omega]

jimmy wants to change the subject.

 

[stephen55]

An insult contest!! I love these thing.........

STEVIE BLUNDER

Ofcourse the MMPI is statistics; it was normed the same as the GATB (General Aptitudes Test Battery) and the military aptitudes battery. All of the MMPI was normed on specific disordered populations. I know this stuff, man.

All you know is how much Bayer kicks back to you for aspirin and sugar pill prescriptions. All an MD really needs to know is the date-time for his ROTARY CLUB meeting, and how much he gets for meds. And it helps if the MD has narcissistic personality disorder, so you can recognize each other.

Jay BJ not only wants to change the subject, he wants to use the old ad Hominem fallacy to back up his drivel.

What he knows, he uses to conflate. I'm sure he did this successfully in high school debates, against his fellow inbreds. (See, Jimmy, it's easy to toss bile.)

And now for some more bile; Jimmy BJ, I know you're not really the grossest of the products of inbreeding. That's because your father was a dead goat. And that spirochete connecting your two neurons? That was a posthumous gift from your daddy.

And why did your mommy choose to fuck a dead goat? That's because all the live goats ran away.

So, the take home message for today is; Jimmy BJ is best taken with a pinch of laughter.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Lance thinks he's clever.

 

[JamesSD]

What's interesting to me is in the modern US our rightwingers have shifted away from Authoritarian submission, at least in the case of Doctors and scientists. There's a strong anti-intellectual strain in the right that hates us "eggheads" telling them what is correct and factually true, especially if it conflicts with one interpretation of a 4000 year old religious text.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What's interesting to me is in the modern US our rightwingers have shifted away from Authoritarian submission, at least in the case of Doctors and scientists. There's a strong anti-intellectual strain in the right that hates us "eggheads" telling them what is correct and factually true, especially if it conflicts with one interpretation of a 4000 year old religious text.

There has always been a strong anti-intellectual strain in the right. intellectuals are too complicated. They don't offer single-sentence solutions. They look at more than one side-- hell, they look at more than two sides.
There is a huge ideological difference between facts, and Truth.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Stella just likes the look of a fag with a beret, cigarette holder, and glass of prune brandy.

 

[bflagsst]

Most people I've ever known in my life submit to perceived authority, display aggression against perceived threats to that authority, and hold on tight to conventional ideas. There's not enough information provided in that article to differentiate between people(Americans at least.) The only way a society can function is by propagating these three core values. Unless someone's living in a hovel up on Ruby Ridge with a truck full of ammunition, or sabotaging our armed forces, I'd imagine just about everyone displays these general personality traits.

Dictionary of Accepted Ideas by Flaubert comes to mind as a real light discussion of French conventional wisdom.

 

[stephen55]

I was wrong!!!!

Stella just likes the look of a fag with a beret, cigarette holder, and glass of prune brandy.

So, the take home message for today is; Jimmy BJ is best taken with a pinch of laughter.


For a while, I thought that Jimmy BJ and Ami were trained in the same facility. There are two differences that suggest otherwise.

Ami always uses one hundred words when ten would do. You have to admire Jimmy's brevity. Reading ten words of drivel is so much easier on the funny bone.

Second, when Ami gets hoisted on his own petard, he quits. Jimmy's momma didn't raise no quitter!! Jimmy's still kicking, even with his own PSTD petard through his guts. For the uninitiated, here's Jimmy on PSTD...
*****************

PTSD is the easiest problem to cure. I do it in one session. The trick is to link the aversive experience with something thats strongly attractive. We do it all the time with work and crime and philandering. If I place a chest of gold coins at the bottom of a shark tank you'll risk drowning and the sharks to acquire the gold.

Which he followed with...

I've never met anyone with PTSD, and I never met anyone in Vietnam who had it. I have met a few men who claimed to have it but all of them were homeless drunks who lied about military service. I suspect most cases of PTSD are malingering.

I did meet one guy in boot-camp who had a severe case of separation panic from his mama.
******************

So, Jimmy likes to both suck and blow. His problem, amongst many, is not just from which orifice he's doing this, but that he can't keep his lies straight.

 

[bflagsst]

"The trick is to link the aversive experience with something thats strongly attractive."

B. F. Skinner lives?

 

[bronzeage]

Damn right you can't speak for everyone. Yet you try to do so, all the time.
A significant trait of an RWA.

Last week he was the representative of straight men. I guess they voted him off the island.

 

[Handley_Page]

Sorry, but I got to pick up on this bit:-


...Altemeyer explains that "right-wing'" means a "psychological sense of submitting to perceived authorities in one's life," and is not identified with a specific political ideology.
In the Soviet Union, "right-wing" meant a sense of submitting to communist authorities, and Altemeyer presented research showing this was so.
This is what his RWA (right-wing authoritarianism) scale measured. It is obviously related to the perpetuation of hierarchy, and the use of force to impose "order."

Now, please forgive me if I have missed an important distinction betwixt UK and USA, but as I recall, Communism (as in the Soviet State) was (very) LEFT wing. It was an imposed authority (notionally via committee representation up through the chain to the top; seldom if ever achieved).
As if that isn't enough a large proportion of the populace did not agree with things but were forced by a repressive regime to accept or comply with the rules.

Or have I really missed something ?
.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LANCE we're on to you.