A Short-Form Dogmatism Scale for Use in Field Studies

Abstract

Rokeach recently introduced a theory about different styles of belief systems that people have. The theory is an outgrowth of work on the Authoritarian Personality. The theory has not been utilized much in field studies because the primary measuring instrument, the scale, contains 40 items. In this article, the authors recommend shorter versions of the dogmatism scale, indicating which items should be used to maintain the reliability of the measuring instrument. The short forms were developed from data collected in two field studies. J{R okeach's theory of belief systems is currently receiving considerable attention from social scientists.' This recent attention to the theory may be due to the current interest in cognitive theories in general, and to the fact Rokeach's work derives from the much-studied Authoritarian Personality. Unfortunately, Rokeach's belief-systems theory has been tested primarily with relatively homogeneous samples of subjects, primarily students or other intact groups. Probably the main reason Rokeach's theory has been tested so little in field studies is the length of the primary measuring instrument used to test the theory-the 40-item self-administered dogmatism scale. It takes about 20 minutes to administer it. Despite this time problem, the authors have included the 40-item dogmatism scale in two field studies. The scale was included in a study of 227 Boston suburbanites who subscribed to a county agricultural newspaper, to test whether it could be meaningfully administered to general-population samples.2 A method of having interviewers read the items in the scale to respondents was developed to avoid the problems of self-administration. From these data, a short form of the scale was developed. Although a 10-item short form of the dogmatism scale has already been proposed by Schulze, his short form was developed from the responses of college students.3 Therefore, it was felt that its application in field studies was not advisable without further analysis. The results of this study indicated that field and classroom situations produce quite different results. The complete 40-item dogmatism scale was also included in a field study of Lansing, Michigan, residents.4 The Lansing data were used to cross-validate the abbreviated versions of the scale developed from the Boston data. PERSONAL-INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUE In the Boston study, interviewers read the items to respondents instead of having respondents self-administer the scale. The interviewing administration of the scale is quite simple, but interviewers must be briefed carefully if they are to administer the scale quickly. Just before the dogmatism scale is administered, the interviewer reads a set of instructions that are almost the same as Rokeach's original instruc-