The Sociological Significance of Measurable Attitudes

Abstract

ion. No Armenian has asked to marry the man's daughter, and free trade is a hypothetical state rather than a social reality. The response to any question of the would-you, do-you-believe, in-youropinion-is, or why-is type is a specific ideology. It may or may not belong to an established ideological system. Responses to such questions as Do you believe in God? probably are; responses to such questions as Do you consider the ownership of a Ford or a Packard more appropriate to the status of a college professor? are probably isolated and individual ideological elements-or, as some would say, rationalizations, but that measured attitudes are what have otherwise been designated as should be evident. It is greatly to be desired, therefore, that what have herein been designated as measured attitudes be termed, not attitudes, but ideologies.6 So far, the study of has been largely ideological. Men have expressed their opinions on the relationship between Roman Catholic ideology and the rise of capitalism, the significance of Puritanism as a determinant of history, and so on. Whether the decadence of Roman Catholic ideology was a cause or a consequence of those changes in the socio-economic structure which we vaguely designate as the rise of capitalism, whether Calvinistic ideology speeded these changes or was fostered by them, whether, in fact, there were systems of verbal justification for systems of human relationship which may be described as Roman Catholic and as Calvinistic ideology, are all matters of personal opinion. The historical facts are few and are subject to variable interpretation. For example, the sources of data on the religious of the past are the writings of such atypical men as Aquinas, Calvin, and Cotton Mather. It is improbable that either the lord in his castle or the peasant in his hut were impressed in the least by the verbal meanderings of Aquinas. Certainly the of the former are not to be deduced from the writings 6 The term ideologies has been applied to measured attitudes by D. Katz, Attitude Measurement as a Method in Social Psychology, Social Forces, I937, IS: 479-482. Katz thinks, however, that the questionnaire measures the subjective side of man, meaning, we may suppose, the covert-nonsymbolic and the covert-symbolic aspects of behavior, and applies the term ideologies thereto. In so doing, he does violence both to fact and to the traditional meaning of the term ideologies. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:42:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SIGNIFICANCE OF MEASURABLE ATTITUDES I8i of the latter, but it was the behavior of the lord and the peasant which brought about profound changes in the social structure of western Europe. Since one cannot now ascertain the of the lord and the peasant, one certainly cannot ascertain the role of those in these significant social changes. Therefore historical study of is little more than ideology-building. Contemporary study of current can, however, be objective. The questionnaire device can measure in a more accurate and specific way than has heretofore been possible what people say that they think, believe, would do, and will do and what they say is the reason they think, and so on, as they do. If, then, the questionnaire device is applied to the measurement of ideologies, a body of useful data on the nature of may be accumulated. Random application will not, however, help in the solution of the problem of the role of in society. Data on will be useful only when they are correlated with data on other and relevant social facts. The significance of in the maintenance and the change of a social system may then be determined. Some of the so-called attitudinal studies which have been made under the tacit assumption that actual attitudes were being measured are, in fact, attempts to relate to observed behavior. Woolston, for example, has tried to correlate depression experiences and the acceptance of radical and the rejection of conservative economic ideologies.7 The following brief summary of a study also suggests the general results of such an approach. A questionnaire concerning the causes for the general antagonism towards Armenians in Fresno County was sent to non-Armenian residents. The 879 separate explanations which were secured were highly standardized. The most popular was that the Armenians are dishonest, lying, and deceitful; in supplementary interviews, bankers, credit men, and merchants were found almost invariably to give this as their explanation. The second explanation in point of popularity was that the Armenians lived parasitically on the community and accounted for the major burden of charity, both private and public; when questioned, directors of charitable institutions and of public relief and professional social workers supplemented this finding. The third explanation was that the Armenians were a cantankerous lot, always going to law with some grievance or other; the District Attorney and his staff, local judges and their staffs, and private lawyers heartily endorsed this interpretation. These, then, are the three common by which the people of Fresno County explain their antagonism to the Armenians. An examination of the actual experiences of the people of the community with Armenians, however, shows the following facts: Over the years the Armenians I H. Woolston, American Intellectuals and Social Reform, Sociol. and Soc. Res., I936,