Understanding Leaders of Repressive Social Movements

Researchers studying right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) have discussed the need to distinguish authoritarian followers from leaders. Altemeyer's (2003) studies raise several issues about political leadership in the real world. First, are most leaders of authoritarian social movements high on both RWA and social dominance (SDO)? Second, is it possible to be an authoritarian leader of a repressive social movement without being high on SDO? Third, it would be useful to develop techniques to assess SDO at a distance. Fourth, what roles do the psychological motives of need for power, need for affiliation and intimacy, and need for responsibility play in motivating leadership behavior in high SDO leaders? Finally, does social dominance exist in countries with non–Western value systems? Understanding the psychology of leaders of repressive social movements may help us develop ways to limit access to the power they crave and to mitigate the damage that they do.     

The Role of Lay Perceptions of Ethnic Prejudice in the Maintenance and Perpetuation of Ethnic Bias

This article discusses the role of lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice in the maintenance and perpetuation of prejudicial attitudes. We first discuss the importance of lay beliefs about ethnic prejudice for understanding processes underlying prejudice and its reduction. We also discuss the potential relations between two individual differences—social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism—and these beliefs. Next, we describe the research that we have conducted on lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice, including perceptions of causes of prejudice, solutions to prejudice, and the inevitability and justifiability of prejudice. This research demonstrates that individuals who are high in social dominance orientation and, to a lesser extent, right-wing authoritarianism, hold beliefs which may serve to maintain and perpetuate prejudicial attitudes. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for developing effective intervention strategies.     

Effects of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Threat from Terrorism on Restriction of Civil Liberties

In an Internet survey (N = 275), we investigated how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), personal values, and political ideology predicted attitudes toward restriction of civil liberties and toward surveillance measured one year later. Feelings of threat from terrorism were also taken into account. RWA, SDO, political ideology, security values, and self-direction values were significant predictors. In addition, RWA interacted with threat from terrorism, in that threat reinforced the positive effect of RWA on support for surveillance measures. Thus, the study contributes to the understanding of psychological reasons for support for political measures related to civil liberties.     

Reflections on the Statistical Analysis of Personality and Norms in War, Peace, and Prejudice: Are Deviant Minorities the Problem?

The compelling quality of the Global Change simulation study ( Altemeyer, 2003 ), in which high RWA (right-wing authoritarianism)/high SDO (social dominance orientation) individuals produced poor outcomes for the planet, rests on the inference that the link between high RWA/SDO scores and disaster in the simulation can be generalized to real environmental and social situations. However, we argue that studies of the Person × Situation interaction are biased to overestimate the role of the individual variability. When variables are operationalized, strongly normative items are excluded because they are skewed and kurtotic. This occurs both in the measurement of predictor constructs, such as RWA, and in the outcome constructs, such as prejudice and war. Analyses of normal linear statistics highlight personality variables such as RWA, which produce variance, and overlook the role of norms, which produce invariance. Where both normative and personality forces are operating, as in intergroup contexts, the linear analysis generates statistics for the sample that disproportionately reflect the behavior of the deviant, antinormative minority and direct attention away from the baseline, normative position. The implications of these findings for the link between high RWA and disaster are discussed.     

Longitudinal associations among adolescents’ organized activity involvement and sociopolitical values

Organized activities represent a potentially important context for the development of adolescent sociopolitical values, but few studies have examined longitudinal associations between youths’ sociopolitical values and activity involvement. Adolescents (N = 299, Time 1 M_age = 15.49, SD = .93, 62% female) reported on their organized activity involvement (volunteering, church, sports, arts/music, school and community clubs) and sociopolitical values (materialism, social dominance, authoritarianism, patriotism, spirituality) at baseline and one year later. Greater involvement in arts/music predicted lower spirituality and patriotism one year later and greater involvement in church predicted higher levels of spirituality and lower levels of social dominance one year later. Higher levels of materialism predicted less involvement in arts/music one year later and higher social dominance values predicted less involvement in volunteering one year later. Findings support the importance of organized activities in sociopolitical development, and suggest that sociopolitical values may guide decisions concerning future organized activity involvement.     

‘Fragmented authoritarianism’ – the facilitator behind the Chinese reform miracle: a case study in central China

Although it maintains an authoritarian power structure, China has been widely perceived as one of most decentralized nations in the world in terms of government spending. The concept of ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ has figured largely in academic discussions of China's regime. It raises the question of how such apparently opposed states – ‘fragmentation’ and ‘authoritarianism’ – co-exist. In particular, how can so many important economic and political reforms have been launched in a milieu of fragmented authoritarianism? An analysis of an intergovernmental jurisdiction reform launched by city leaders suggests that fragmented authoritarianism facilitated the reform miracle. Fragmentation supplies the room and space for reform and change, while authoritarianism provides the power and authority for leaders to launch such reforms. That is why China has been able to remain united through a process of dramatic change.     

The Psychological Ambiguity of Immigration and Its Implications for Promoting Immigration Policy

Immigration can evoke two recurring and contradictory social psychology situations: group inclusion and group threat. This ambiguity implies that immigration can bring out either people's communal, egalitarian natures, or their prejudicial, oppressive natures. Further, it means that immigration policies can be framed in ways that appeal to one psychological orientation or the other. Using this perspective, we examined Californians' attitudes toward a fictitious immigration policy. The policy was framed in one of two ways, and participants' values concerning group equality versus group dominance were measured. Results showed that framing the policy as a way of maintaining dominance over immigrants appealed to those high in social dominance orientation, whereas framing the policy as a way of increasing equality between immigrants and members of the receiving society appealed to those low on social dominance orientation. The practical political aspects of promoting immigration policy are discussed.     

The "Antidemocratic Personality" Revisited: A Cross-National Investigation of Working-Class Authoritarianism

More than 60 years ago, psychologists identified a potential threat to democracy from within, namely the "antidemocratic personality" arising from the "authoritarian syndrome." It was soon discovered that the problem of authoritarianism was especially acute among those who were low in education and income, and that it was associated with intolerance toward others. However, several important questions were left unresolved. We revisit fundamental theoretical and empirical questions concerning the existence and nature of "working-class authoritarianism," focusing especially on four psychological aspects of authoritarianism, namely, conventionalism, moral absolutism, obedience to authority, and cynicism. In a cross-national investigation involving respondents from 19 democratic countries, we find that all four aspects of authoritarianism are indeed related to moral and ethnic intolerance. However, only obedience to authority and cynicism are especially prevalent among those who are low in socioeconomic status. Conventionalism and moral absolutism were significant predictors of economic conservatism, whereas obedience to authority and cynicism were not. We find no support for Lipset's (1960) claim that working-class authoritarianism would be associated with economic liberalism. Instead, we find that authoritarianism is linked to right-wing orientation in general and that intolerance mediates this relationship. Implications for electoral politics and political psychology are discussed.     

Democracy and poverty: The implementation of social reforms in the countries of central and eastern Europe

Why has the political and economic transformation in Russia and central and eastern Europe been accompanied by deteriorating living standards? Many of the reform programmes have contained social elements, but these have been neglected in the implementation process. Certain barriers to change – mental, cultural, political and economic – have made the implementation difficult. Russia and central and eastern Europe have to pass through a problematic dual transformation, from authoritarianism to democracy and from centrally planned economies to market economies. Experiences from Latin America show that such transitions are virtually impossible. The social results from the transformations in central and eastern Europe have been disappointing, which has been documented by scholars in this field. Nevertheless, if the political and economic transformation processes continue, the prospectes for the future are relatively bright. But there is also a negative scenario with authoritarianism and civil war as endpoints. A more cautious transition to a market economy might improve social welfare and living standards.     

Challenging East–West value dichotomies and essentialising discourse on culture and social work

All discourse, whether universalistic and/or particularistic, must be subject to contestation, so that we are held accountable for the thinking that we articulate in our writings, and so that we do not reinforce much of the taken for granted assumptions about the world. Critiques such as those of Hutchings and Taylor in this issue of IJSW remind us of social work's commitment to reflexivity and the need to contest discourse that might not be in the interests of particular groups of people. It is not the debate itself contained in the article that is an issue, but the framing of the debate and the assumptions upon which they are predicated. The discourse on human rights within the liberal democratic framework, in a rapidly globalising world characterised by neoliberal capitalism, needs to be critiqued on a global level. Hutchings and Taylor's article assumes the applicability and suitability of liberal democracy for the West and not for the East, with an assumption that the West is characterised by liberalism and the East by tradition and a bureaucratic authoritarianism. It is these assumptions, and the tendency to essentialise Chinese and Western culture and to reinforce the dichotomy between the West and the East, that I contest in this article.     

Understanding Popularity and Relational Aggression in Adolescence: The Role of Social Dominance Orientation

This study investigated a potential moderator of the association between popularity and relational aggression: social dominance orientation (SDO), the degree to which an individual endorses the importance of social hierarchy. One hundred eighty‐five ninth graders completed a sociometric assessment of RA and popularity, and a self‐report SDO measure. SDO was positively associated with popularity for both boys and girls, and with RA for girls. Popularity and RA were positively correlated for both genders. Regression analyses showed that SDO moderated the association between popularity and RA for girls, but not for boys. Girls who were both popular and who were social dominance‐oriented were particularly high in peer‐nominated RA. SDO may provide a useful framework for understanding the role of popularity in adolescent peer groups.     

Changes in attitude towards people with mental illness in P-city,S. Korea: a comparison between the years 2000 and 2010

The objective of this study was to investigate changes in the attitudes towards people with mental illness in a city located in South Korea (P-city) between 2010 and 2000. Since it was not accessible to raw data of 2000, to compare with 2000 results, the results from the previous research article were used. Results from t-tests and ANCOVA analyses showed positive changes in P-city residents’ attitudes towards people with mental illness, particularly in authoritarianism and social restrictiveness. Discussion includes the role of a successful community mental health centre in bringing about such positive attitudinal changes.     

Ukraine

Unlike the Russian authorities, the Ukrainian authorities are unable to create a social base for authoritarianism through the use of cheap raw materials and the idea of state grandeur. Ukraine also differs from Belarus in being much more pluralistic.     

Nurtured from Above and Growing from the Roots: Social Investment Funds and Decentralization in Zambia and Malawi

Social investment funds aim at the provision of social infrastructure through community involvement and participatory procedures. This paper focuses on two specific social investment funds, those in Zambia and Malawi. Both have a strong commitment to participation by the community, signified particularly in direct disbursement to those communities. They aim to work through the field units of government administration in a decentralized manner instead of creating parallel structures. The Zambian social fund has decentralized its procedures to a considerable degree, and it is a role model in this respect. The Malawian social fund is not such a powerful catalyst for organizational change, as it is confronted with much stronger residues of authoritarianism. Nevertheless, like the Zambian fund, it is an effective and cheap mechanism for delivery of social infrastructure. Both social investment funds are resisting merger, with comprehensive decentralization programmes aiming to bring the district administration under an elected local authority that Zambia and Malawi have both initiated. This paper argues that this resistance is rational. It pleads for an organic growth of decentralization instead of legislating it into existence. The experience of these social investment funds show that it is more fruitful to graft the decentralized procedures of social funds on to existing institutions than to embark on comprehensive decentralization programmes.     

Social Dominance in Romantic Relationships: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Non-verbal Processes

The study of social dominance has a long tradition within the peer relationships literature, but rarely has the topic been investigated observationally and longitudinally within other salient close relationships. The present study investigated the role of experiences in social relationships and adjustment indices in childhood in predicting later observed non‐verbal social dominance behaviors in the context of romantic relationships in emerging adults. Analyses from a subsample (N = 70) from a 29‐year prospective longitudinal study revealed links between early peer behavior and subsequent romantic relationship interactions for men and women. Non‐verbal social dominance behaviors were concurrently associated with poor romantic relationship quality, conflict, and physical and verbal aggression within the dyad. Both childhood externalizing and internalizing behaviors significantly predicted non‐verbal social dominance behaviors in the romantic partner interactions.     

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Politicized Psychology

This article provides two arguments for using caution when interpreting the results of a Global Change Game simulation indicating that people high in right-wing authoritarianism are particularly likely to bring the world to ruin. First, we review research that demonstrates that extremists on both the political left and right share characteristics likely to be associated with poor performance in the Global Change Game (e.g., lower levels of integrative complexity) and that there are reasons to be cautious about letting political extremists on either the left or right inherit the earth. Second, we caution that political psychologists need to be aware of how their own values shape the types of research they conduct and the inferences they draw from that research and that the same results can be construed very differently depending on the lens through which they are viewed.     

Authoritarians, the Next Generation: Values and Bullying Among Adolescent Children of Authoritarian Fathers

The author comments on an article by Altemeyer (2003) . The implications of authoritarianism to social phenomena are extended to the values and bullying behaviors of adolescent children of authoritarian fathers. Eighty-two authoritarian and 252 nonauthoritarian Israeli fathers participated with their adolescent children. Authoritarian fathers expected their children to give high importance to power, tradition, and conformity values and lower-than-average importance to benevolence, universalism, and self-direction values. In comparison with offspring of nonauthoritarian fathers, offspring of authoritarian fathers gave more importance to power values and less importance to universalism values. Offspring of authoritarian fathers also tended to associate more with bully friends. The combination of high adolescent power values and their fathers' authoritarian parenting was associated with the highest degrees of bullying by adolescents. The social implications of the findings are discussed.     

From Mirroring to World‐Making: Research as Future Forming

After decades of acrimonious debate on the nature of scientific knowledge, researchers in the human or social sciences are reaching a state of relative equanimity, a condition that may be characterized as a reflective pragmatism. Yet, even while the context has favored the development of new forms of research, the longstanding ocular metaphor of inquiry remains pervasive. That is, researchers continue the practice of observing what is the case, with the intent to illuminate, understand, report on, or furnish insight into given states of affairs. And, while selectively useful, such an orientation is not only limited in potential but subject to a receding span of application. As I will propose, when the logics of reflective pragmatism are fully extended, we enter a new territory of understanding, one in which the vision of research is radically altered. We replace the captivating gaze on the world as it is with value based explorations into what it could be. This conception of a future forming orientation to research opens the way to new aims, practices, and reflections.     

在国族与世界之间:莫斯对文明与文明研究的构想

1913年至1930年间,马塞尔·莫斯（Marcel Mauss）将文明重新界定为介于国族与世界之间的物质、制度、精神实体及它们的道德生境。本文系统考察了莫斯对文明与文明研究构想的由来、学术和现实政治针对性以及对当下社会科学革新的意义。文章指出,这一构想在两次世界大战之间得到集中表达。在此期间,有宗教和科学双重基础的西方理性主义文明论与19世纪末出现的极端国族主义文化论,时而相互对立,时而相互结合,给欧洲乃至整个世界带来了严重的现实问题和思想问题。心灵穿梭在共同体之间,莫斯对流动在疆界之间的文明现象给予了关注,对这些现象及其形式和区域分布之研究做了人文科学的总体展望。莫斯的相关设想在当下仍具有高度的现实针对性。鉴于社会科学（包括美式区域研究）长期受制于国族与世界对分格局,莫斯对社会存在之“中间领域”（“诸文明”）的论述将持续起到“思想解放”的作用。     

Medicalization of Social Workers in Mental Health Services in Hong Kong

Correspondence to Dr Kam-shing Yip, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Social Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: ssksyip{at}polyu.edu.hk Summary Medical dominance is a crucial problem in social work practicein mental health services. This paper is an examination of theresponse of social workers to medical dominance in mental healthservices in Hong Kong. To explore the process and the effectsof medicalization of social workers, sixty-three social workersin various areas of mental health service settings were interviewed.Their reaction and daily performance in facing medical dominancewere analysed and evaluated. The findings show that facing medicaldominance was a common occurrence for social workers in variousmental health services in Hong Kong. Conflict existed betweenthe rationalization of medical knowledge by medical professionals,and social work rationalization of social work knowledge bysocial workers. The process of medicalization consisted of fivestages: ignorance of medical dominance, confronting medicaldominance, compromise with medical dominance, acceptance ofmedical dominance and internalization of medical dominance.The findings also show that medicalization was influenced bythe organizational and team context.