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from the what-y'all-love-social-sciences dept.
It's 2017. Why are there still Nazis?
It's a question many observers are asking after hundreds of white supremacists, many displaying swastikas and Confederate battle flags and shouting racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist slogans, took to the streets of Charlottesville, Va., this weekend, provoking violence that claimed the life of one counter-protester and resulted in multiple injuries.
The continued existence of people who hold openly white supremacist ideologies more than seven decades after the fall of the Third Reich can be explained, in part, through a social theory developed in the early 1990s. Social dominance theory seeks to explain how hierarchy-enhancing ideologies do not just drive social inequality, but are also a result of it. It suggests that a single personality trait, called social dominance orientation (SDO), strongly predicts a person's political and social views, from foreign policy and criminal justice to civil rights and the environment. What's more, it offers insight into how ideologies such as racism, sexism, and xenophobia tend to arise from the unequal distribution of a society's resources.
"Social dominance theory provides a yardstick for measuring social and political ideologies," says Felicia Pratto, who developed the theory with fellow psychologist Jim Sidanius. "SDO is one way – not the only one – to try to figure out what those ideologies are 'about.'"
You too can take the Social Dominance Orientation quiz to determine your nazi quotient.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Sunday September 17 2017, @06:51PM (4 children)
Some of these questions are somewhat vague, but don't pretend you did not understand what they were getting at: An issue on which there are quite simply different views. There's eight questions, so if you really misunderstand one or two of them, or think of an unusual example where your general world view does not apply, then that will simply be averaged out. Dig up the numbers yourself, if you like, but the scale has been shown to be reasonably consistent (i.e. same persons gives similar answers on re-test, on one half of the questions compared to the others, etc.), and they have been shown to correlate to various other concepts, so it has been demonstrated that it does in fact measure something. If you have reason to argue that it measures something other than what it is labelled, then say so. Saying it's just noise does not work.
Given your further explanations, it is rather obvious that you score medium to high on that scale. That does not make you a bad person or even a Nazi, but it is not the same as my score, for instance. There are different views on the best balance of equality and hierarchy in a society. Arguing which balance is "objectively" better (on whatever count) is not the point, here. Also, translating from a certain score on the scale to a very specific society is going to be difficult. But still higher scores reflect a different view on the world than lower scores.
True, and that is just one of the reasons why this "test" cannot diagnose a Nazi. But again, why would it, there are more direct questions for that. I can see why you would be triggered with csmonitor basically selling this as an "are you a Nazi"-test, while that is in fact not what it is. Now I am in the comfy position of scoring low on the scale, so I'm not under suspicion of being a Nazi. But then, the downside to that is that I'm always at danger of being stamped a Communist. If nothing else, you will probably admit that this isn't a label that you get confronted with, too often?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:36AM (3 children)
It was like the first time I was asked "does your mom know you are stupid?" It takes a second to figure out the question itself is trick the first time. I went through four of these just to see if they were all like that. Answering the question means you are ignorant, naive, or stupid (ie someone to be manipulated). Some people never get that, which is what this tests for I guess?
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday September 18 2017, @06:15AM (2 children)
Hm, you seriously think a trick question could serve a purpose in a paper-and-pencil/online test? A forced choice one, too? Care to explain the algorithm for that?
Look, TFA is very much to blame for Godwin-ing the whole thing from the start. But that questionnaire still measures something. And for all I can see some folks, here, are actually surprised to find out their view on equality / hierarchy is not universally shared. Isn't that a start?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:11PM (1 child)
Psychology questionnaires often use misdirection so you do not guess the true purpose of the questions. In fact I would say the majority of them are like this. Have you never taken psych 101 where they make you be a subject for 3 "studies" to pass?
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday September 18 2017, @01:29PM
I took enough psychology classes (and played lab rat to more than enough studies) to be able to google "social dominance orientation", and find out it is a well-established concept backed by some well-published scales (heck, you can even read up on it on wikipedia) designed to measure: social dominance orientation.