Psychological Repo~tr,1975, 36, 423-429. @ Psychological Reports 1975 DOGMATISM AND EXPOSURE T O POLITICAL CANDIDATES RICHARD M. D W D
Southern Illinois University
AND
ZARREL V. LAMBERT
Universiy of Florida
at Carbondale
Summary.-Formation and change of political as well as other beliefs are a function of a person's exposure to information which is subject partially to his conrrol. He may actively seek or avoid additional information, partic-ularly information that mighr be discrepant with preconceived opinions. The hypothesis was that Ss with high scores on dogmatism were less willing than Ss wirh low scores to arrend speeches of presidential primary candidates whose views were discrepant with rheir own. A sample of 181 Ss was drawn from franchised university smdents. In n questionnaire covering a wide variety of opinions, Ss were askd to indicate agreement-disagreement wirh active candidates and speech attendance, An analysis using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test supporred the hypothesis. The findings suggest implications for formation of beliefs about other public issues. After persons have been exposed to political information, selective perception has been found to operate. For instance, voters misperceive the position of a favored candidate and the posicion of their political party when these positions differ from their own (Kirkpatrick, 1970; Sears, 1969; Sherrod, 1972). Disfavored political views and positions are also misperceived according to the notion of assimilation-contrast (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). Differences with a voter's own opinions tend to be exaggerated (contrast effect) when a candidate's expressed sentiments fall. outside the voter's acceptance region, whereas the differences tend to be underrated (assimilation effect) when the sentiments are within the acceptance region. Of course, exposure must take place before selective perception comes into play. In a real world milieu as distinguished from an experimental setting, voters often can control their exposure to political information, particularly speeches by candidates, thereby muting selective perception at least partially. Voters can simply avoid exposure to candidates and information that might be discrepant with their preconceived views and positions. Rokeach (1960) states that "people often selectively avoid contact with stimuli, people, events, books, etc., that threaten the validicy of their ideology . . ." (p. 48). The concept of dogmatism as articulated by Rokeach (1960) and others contains several dimensions which suggest a relationship between dogmatism in a person's cognitive system and selective exposure to political information, particularly speeches by candidates. The research reported here tested for such a relationship. Persons low in dogmatism, termed open-minded, are said to have a comparatively strong need co know and to understand (KLeck & Wheaton, 1967).
424
R. M. DURAND
&
Z. V. LAMBERT
This being the case, the expectation is for them to be relatively active in seeking information. Long and Ziller ( 1965 ) have observed that such persons engaged in greater predecisional search for information in abstract judgment situations. By comparison, individuals high in dogmatism act to repel threatening and anxiety producing information and are called closed minded (Rokeach, 1960). The belief-disbelief system of such persons is described as a network of cognitive defenses against belief-discrepant stimuli. According to Rokeach (1954), the greater the dogmatism of the individual the more he will avoid belief-discrepant stimuli which may menace his belief system. Applied to the political realm, one inference is that highly dogmatic persons, when they have a choice, tend to avoid exposure to candidates with perceived discrepant views; whereas those who score low, desiring information, exercise more selective exposure to such candidates. Research outside the political realm supports this inference, although a few contradictions appear in the findings (Byrne, Blaylock, & Goldberg, 1966; Kleck & Wheaton, 1967; Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969). In addition to avoidance behavior, Rokeach (1960, 1965) indicates highly dogmatic persons depend upon and conform to those they perceive as authorities. This practice in the area of politics would lead such persons to conform to those individuals and organizations which they accepted as political authorities. As a result, it seems that their search for information and exposure to candidates would be more limited than that of persons low in dogmatism. Dogmatic persons' dependence on authorities has been observed in several studies (Ehrlich & Lee, 1969; Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969), including a finding by Powell (1962) that high scorers were less able than low scorers to distinguish between the content and source of a political message. Also, highly dogmatic persons have been found to engage in fewer political acts (Levy, Russell, Kirnmel, Carrick, & Burnaska, 1973). Extrapolating from the conceptual dimensions of dogmatism and the preponderance of research findings, highly dogmatic persons were hypothesized to practice more selectivity than low scorers in attending political speeches. The specific hypothesis examined in the research stated that the frequency of exposure to U. S. presidential candidates who were perceived to have potentially discrepant political views was lowest among the more dogmatic subjects.
METHOD The data were collected in the spring during the height of the 1972 presidential primaries. There was extensive public discussion prior to the primaries on extending the voting franchise to 18-yr.-olds. Hence, interest in the candidates' views was expected to be high among university students from whom the sample was drawn. Also, the state where-% resided was one of the earliest to hold a primary so there was active campaigning and considerable interest
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDIDATES
42 5
in the amount of support the candidates would generate among voters, particularly the younger ones. The sample included 181 Ss who represented a wide variety of academic disciplines and ranged from underclassmen to graduate students. They were volunteers from a number of solicited classes. It was thought that use of student Ss would not be an undue handicap since the research was designed to compare selective exposure across differing degrees of dogmatism. The comparative nature of the study freed the findings from being contingent upon fixed amounts of dogmatism that might or might not be characteristic of some other population. The degree of exposure to presidential candidates perceived to have discrepant views was measured through two questions. The questions were dispersed within a larger instaurnent which requested information on a variety of topics. Consequently, the purpose of the questions pertaining to the candidates was not apparent to Ss. One question asked S to assign a rating from 0 to 100 to each of 14 candidates to indicate how closely the candidate's views on major issues agreed with Ys. At the time the question was asked, all 14 candidates were actively seeking voter support in the 1972 presidential p r i m a r i e ~ . ~On the rating scale furnished to Ss, a 0 indicated complete disagreement and 100 indicated complete agreement. Another question at a different point in the instrument asked S to check the names of the candidates whose speeches he had attended or would attend if the candidate(s) were to speak on campus. At the time this question was answered, two or three major candidates had spoken on campus. Since this was one of the earliest primaries, most candidates, wanting to demonscrate support among voters, had announced plans to visit the state or implied they would do so, thus raising the possibility of a campus visit since it was the largest in the state. Student groups actively campaigning for various candidates promoted the idea that their candidate would probably be coming to campus. Consequently, the atmosphere prevailing when the question was asked made it seem conceivable that nearly all candidates might be speaking on campus. Eventually many of them did. The question was answered anonymously with SS knowing that the experimenters had no way of discovering how they responded. This should have minimized bias attributable to the experimenters. Since the responses were not known to other Ss, a minimum amount of bias due to peer pressure and social desirability was expected. Whether a S had attended in the past or would in the future, in fact, attend 'The candidates were John Ashbrook, Shir!ey Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Linda Jenness. John Lindsay, Eugene McCarchy, Paul McClosky, George McGovern, Edmund Muskie, Richard Nixon, Benjamin Spodr, George Wallace, and Sam Yorty.
42 6
R. M. DURAND & 2. V. LAMBERT
a speech by a specific candidate at a particular time could depend on situational factors prevailing at that time. For instance, a S might have an important course examination the next day and feel compelled to study rather than attend the speech. Friends might happen along and persuade S to go to some other activity or vice versa. Therefore, responses of Ss can be interpreted for the most part as a willingness, an intention to attend and be exposed to the views of the candidate. The amount of selective exposure to discrepant political information was computed by subtracting from 100 the rating given each candidate whose speech S would attend. This difference represented the degree of perceived discrepancy. Then these differences were cast into a frequency distribution containing 20 intervals spanning 5 points apiece. A separate frequency distribution was constructed for Ss high and low in dogmatism. In effect, each frequency distribution combined two measures, ( 1 ) the act of exposure and ( 2 ) perceived magnitude of discrepancy, to yield a combined measure that took into account the degree to which the self-selected information was discrepant with S's views. After the amount of dogmatism had been assessed using the TrodahlPowell (1965) scale, a median split procedure was employed to classify Ss into high and low groups. The median split overcame the criticism expressed by Vacchiano, et al. (1969) that "most researchers . . . fail to include a full range of dogmatism scores in their study samples, using only HD [very highly dogmatic] and LD [very low dogmatic] extremes." This procedure also permitted dogmatism scores to be treated as relational measures for comparative purposes, thus avoiding the use of population norms which might be faulty. The Kolrnogorov-Smirnov two-sample test was utilized to compare the frequency distributions of exposure to discrepant candidates for Ss high and low in dogmatism. This nonparametric analytical technique is sensitive to any differences in the distributions of two samples, and it is useful in testing if the values of one distribution tend to be larger than those of the other (Siegel, 1956). RESULTSAND DISCUSSION Findings of the analysis supported the hypothesis that highly dogmatic Ss selectively exposed themselves to less discrepant political information than Ss comparatively low in dogmatism. The frequency distributions based on exposure differed significantly at the .02 level in the predicted direction, in a 8.96, df = 2 ). Exposure among one-tailed test, between the two groups (x" low scorers was consistently higher over the two-thirds of the distribution range which reflected the greatest degree of discrepancy between the views of the candidate and S. It might be noted at this juncture that dogmatism scores ranged from 29 to 103 with 67 as the median.
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDlDATES
42 7
The differences in exposure between low- and high-dogmatic groups are depicted graphically in Fig. 1 where the X-axis refleccs in descending order from left to right the amount of perceived discrepancy. The Y-axis measures the cumulative frequency of exposure, the percentage of total exposures. Together the two axes show the percentage of total exposures, by S group, to information having a perceived discrepancy greater than a stated amount. For example, over 17% of all exposures by low-dogmatic Ss were to candidates having a discrepancy rating of 86 or more on a O- to 100-point scale.
.-w 0
E 0
20
....
Low dogmatism
High dogmatism
a...........
-
Degree of Perceived Discrepancy FIG. 1. Dogmatism and frequency of exposure
The differences between the two S groups in exposure were most pronounced where the discrepancy in views was more than 50 points. This level of discrepancy is portrayed on the left side of Fig. 1. In this range, S was more in disagreement than agreement with the candidate. Consequently, these candi-
428
R. M. DURAND
& Z.
V. LAMBERT
dates or at least the information conveyed in their speeches would be the most threatening and anxiety producing to highly dogmatic Ss, according to Rokeach's conceptualization of dogmatism. It is noteworthy that on a percentage basis cumulative exposures in the 61- to 100-point discrepancy range ran from 40 to 137% higher among lowdogmatic Ss. For example, 9.38% of exposures for highly dogmatic Ss were in the 8 1 to 100 range, whereas 18.87% or more than twice as many exposures for the low-dogmatic Ss were in this segment. As the graph in the upper right hand corner of Fig. 1 indicates, a slightly smaller proportion of exposures of low-dogmatic Ss, relative to high-dogmatic ones, were to candidates with whom Ss substantially agreed (20 points or less discrepancy). The absolute difference in the proportions between the two groups of Ss might be interpreted as implying that low-dogmatic Ss, when given a choice, may be slightly more likely to decide on hearing a candidate with discrepant rather than similar political views to their own. The difference in the proportions, however, was not significant ( p > .05). It might be mentioned that low scorers indicated they would attend, on the average, 5.76 speeches. In comparison, highly dogmatic Ss indicated a 4.91 average attendance rate. Again, the difference was in the expected direction since, according to conceptualizations by Rokeach and others, low scorers, having a strong need to know, seek the most information. In summarizing, the findings indicated that the extent of selective exposure to discrepant political candidates was negatively related to the amount of dogmatism within an individual's cognitive system. In other words, Ss low in dogmatism seemed to expose themselves to more information that was discrepant with their political beliefs than did the highly dogmatic Ss. The greater a person's commitment to particular political views the more intense this relationship probably becomes. These findings have implications that extend beyond the political realm. One would expect similar relationships between dogmatism and selective exposure to prevail in the case of other public issues, particularly when the issues impinge on beliefs that are central to the individual's values or that involve high commitment by the individual. The presence of such relationships would serve to affect the speed and magnitude of changes in public beliefs and opinions. A related, unsurprising finding was that both high and low scorers in practicing selective exposure seemed to prefer mainly information consistent with their beliefs. Although the two groups differed significantly, over 60% of total exposures in both cases fell into the 0- to 50-point discrepancy range. That is to say, over 60% of all Ss preferred mostly consistent information. This finding paralleled the observations of other researchers (Kleck & Wheaton, 1967).
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDIDATES REFERENCES BYRNE, D., BLAYLOCK,B., & GOLDBERG,J. Dogmatism and defense mechanisms. Psychological Reports, 1966, 18, 739-742. EHRLICH,H. J., & LEE. D. Dogmatism, learning, and resistance to change: a review and a new paradigm. P ~ y c h o l o g i c ~Bulletin, l 1969, 71, 243-2150. KIRKPATRICK,S. Political attitude structure and component change. Public Opinion Quarterly, 1970, 34, 403-407. KLECK, R. E., & WHEATON, J. Dogmatism and responses to opinion-consistent and opinion-inconsistent information. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1967, 5, 249-252. LEVY, S. G., RUSSELL,J. C., KIMMEL,M. J., CARRICK, K., & BURNASKA,R. F. Dogmatism, locus of control of reinforcement, importance of issues, and relationships to political activiry. Iousnal o f Applied Social Psychology, 1973, 3, 119-13 1. LONG, B. H., & ZILLER,R. C. Dogmatism and predecisional information search. lournal o f Applied Psychology, 1965, 49, 376-378. POWELL,F. A. Open- and closed-mindedness and the ability to differentiate source and message. J O U T Mo~f Abnormal and Socidl Psychology, 1962, 65, 61-64, ROKEACH,M. The nature and meaning of dogmatism. Psychological Review, 1954. 61. 194-204. ROKEACH,M. T h e open upid closed mind. New York: Basic Books, 1960. ROKMCH, M. In pursuit of the creative process. In G. A. Steiner (Ed.), T h e creative organization. Chicago: Univer. of Chicago Press. 1965. Pp. 66-88. SEARS,D. 0. Political behavior. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.). Handbook o f social psychology. Vol. 5. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1969. Pp. 337344. SHERIP,C. W., SHERIF,M., & NEBERGALL,R. Attitude and attitude change. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1965. SHERROD,D. R. Selective prcepcion of political candidates. Public Opinion Qucrrterly, 1972.. 35.. 554-562. SIEGEL,S. Nonparamsl~ic statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York: McGrawHill. 1956. TRODAHL,V. C., & POWELL,F. A. A short-form dogmatism scale for use in field studies. Social Forces, 1965, 44, 211-214. VACCHIANO,R. B., S'IRAUSS,P. S., & HOCHMAN. L. The open and closed mind: a review of dogmatism. Psychological Bulletin, 1969, 71, 261-273.
Accepted December 31, 1974.
Southern Illinois University
AND
ZARREL V. LAMBERT
Universiy of Florida
at Carbondale
Summary.-Formation and change of political as well as other beliefs are a function of a person's exposure to information which is subject partially to his conrrol. He may actively seek or avoid additional information, partic-ularly information that mighr be discrepant with preconceived opinions. The hypothesis was that Ss with high scores on dogmatism were less willing than Ss wirh low scores to arrend speeches of presidential primary candidates whose views were discrepant with rheir own. A sample of 181 Ss was drawn from franchised university smdents. In n questionnaire covering a wide variety of opinions, Ss were askd to indicate agreement-disagreement wirh active candidates and speech attendance, An analysis using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test supporred the hypothesis. The findings suggest implications for formation of beliefs about other public issues. After persons have been exposed to political information, selective perception has been found to operate. For instance, voters misperceive the position of a favored candidate and the posicion of their political party when these positions differ from their own (Kirkpatrick, 1970; Sears, 1969; Sherrod, 1972). Disfavored political views and positions are also misperceived according to the notion of assimilation-contrast (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). Differences with a voter's own opinions tend to be exaggerated (contrast effect) when a candidate's expressed sentiments fall. outside the voter's acceptance region, whereas the differences tend to be underrated (assimilation effect) when the sentiments are within the acceptance region. Of course, exposure must take place before selective perception comes into play. In a real world milieu as distinguished from an experimental setting, voters often can control their exposure to political information, particularly speeches by candidates, thereby muting selective perception at least partially. Voters can simply avoid exposure to candidates and information that might be discrepant with their preconceived views and positions. Rokeach (1960) states that "people often selectively avoid contact with stimuli, people, events, books, etc., that threaten the validicy of their ideology . . ." (p. 48). The concept of dogmatism as articulated by Rokeach (1960) and others contains several dimensions which suggest a relationship between dogmatism in a person's cognitive system and selective exposure to political information, particularly speeches by candidates. The research reported here tested for such a relationship. Persons low in dogmatism, termed open-minded, are said to have a comparatively strong need co know and to understand (KLeck & Wheaton, 1967).
424
R. M. DURAND
&
Z. V. LAMBERT
This being the case, the expectation is for them to be relatively active in seeking information. Long and Ziller ( 1965 ) have observed that such persons engaged in greater predecisional search for information in abstract judgment situations. By comparison, individuals high in dogmatism act to repel threatening and anxiety producing information and are called closed minded (Rokeach, 1960). The belief-disbelief system of such persons is described as a network of cognitive defenses against belief-discrepant stimuli. According to Rokeach (1954), the greater the dogmatism of the individual the more he will avoid belief-discrepant stimuli which may menace his belief system. Applied to the political realm, one inference is that highly dogmatic persons, when they have a choice, tend to avoid exposure to candidates with perceived discrepant views; whereas those who score low, desiring information, exercise more selective exposure to such candidates. Research outside the political realm supports this inference, although a few contradictions appear in the findings (Byrne, Blaylock, & Goldberg, 1966; Kleck & Wheaton, 1967; Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969). In addition to avoidance behavior, Rokeach (1960, 1965) indicates highly dogmatic persons depend upon and conform to those they perceive as authorities. This practice in the area of politics would lead such persons to conform to those individuals and organizations which they accepted as political authorities. As a result, it seems that their search for information and exposure to candidates would be more limited than that of persons low in dogmatism. Dogmatic persons' dependence on authorities has been observed in several studies (Ehrlich & Lee, 1969; Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969), including a finding by Powell (1962) that high scorers were less able than low scorers to distinguish between the content and source of a political message. Also, highly dogmatic persons have been found to engage in fewer political acts (Levy, Russell, Kirnmel, Carrick, & Burnaska, 1973). Extrapolating from the conceptual dimensions of dogmatism and the preponderance of research findings, highly dogmatic persons were hypothesized to practice more selectivity than low scorers in attending political speeches. The specific hypothesis examined in the research stated that the frequency of exposure to U. S. presidential candidates who were perceived to have potentially discrepant political views was lowest among the more dogmatic subjects.
METHOD The data were collected in the spring during the height of the 1972 presidential primaries. There was extensive public discussion prior to the primaries on extending the voting franchise to 18-yr.-olds. Hence, interest in the candidates' views was expected to be high among university students from whom the sample was drawn. Also, the state where-% resided was one of the earliest to hold a primary so there was active campaigning and considerable interest
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDIDATES
42 5
in the amount of support the candidates would generate among voters, particularly the younger ones. The sample included 181 Ss who represented a wide variety of academic disciplines and ranged from underclassmen to graduate students. They were volunteers from a number of solicited classes. It was thought that use of student Ss would not be an undue handicap since the research was designed to compare selective exposure across differing degrees of dogmatism. The comparative nature of the study freed the findings from being contingent upon fixed amounts of dogmatism that might or might not be characteristic of some other population. The degree of exposure to presidential candidates perceived to have discrepant views was measured through two questions. The questions were dispersed within a larger instaurnent which requested information on a variety of topics. Consequently, the purpose of the questions pertaining to the candidates was not apparent to Ss. One question asked S to assign a rating from 0 to 100 to each of 14 candidates to indicate how closely the candidate's views on major issues agreed with Ys. At the time the question was asked, all 14 candidates were actively seeking voter support in the 1972 presidential p r i m a r i e ~ . ~On the rating scale furnished to Ss, a 0 indicated complete disagreement and 100 indicated complete agreement. Another question at a different point in the instrument asked S to check the names of the candidates whose speeches he had attended or would attend if the candidate(s) were to speak on campus. At the time this question was answered, two or three major candidates had spoken on campus. Since this was one of the earliest primaries, most candidates, wanting to demonscrate support among voters, had announced plans to visit the state or implied they would do so, thus raising the possibility of a campus visit since it was the largest in the state. Student groups actively campaigning for various candidates promoted the idea that their candidate would probably be coming to campus. Consequently, the atmosphere prevailing when the question was asked made it seem conceivable that nearly all candidates might be speaking on campus. Eventually many of them did. The question was answered anonymously with SS knowing that the experimenters had no way of discovering how they responded. This should have minimized bias attributable to the experimenters. Since the responses were not known to other Ss, a minimum amount of bias due to peer pressure and social desirability was expected. Whether a S had attended in the past or would in the future, in fact, attend 'The candidates were John Ashbrook, Shir!ey Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Linda Jenness. John Lindsay, Eugene McCarchy, Paul McClosky, George McGovern, Edmund Muskie, Richard Nixon, Benjamin Spodr, George Wallace, and Sam Yorty.
42 6
R. M. DURAND & 2. V. LAMBERT
a speech by a specific candidate at a particular time could depend on situational factors prevailing at that time. For instance, a S might have an important course examination the next day and feel compelled to study rather than attend the speech. Friends might happen along and persuade S to go to some other activity or vice versa. Therefore, responses of Ss can be interpreted for the most part as a willingness, an intention to attend and be exposed to the views of the candidate. The amount of selective exposure to discrepant political information was computed by subtracting from 100 the rating given each candidate whose speech S would attend. This difference represented the degree of perceived discrepancy. Then these differences were cast into a frequency distribution containing 20 intervals spanning 5 points apiece. A separate frequency distribution was constructed for Ss high and low in dogmatism. In effect, each frequency distribution combined two measures, ( 1 ) the act of exposure and ( 2 ) perceived magnitude of discrepancy, to yield a combined measure that took into account the degree to which the self-selected information was discrepant with S's views. After the amount of dogmatism had been assessed using the TrodahlPowell (1965) scale, a median split procedure was employed to classify Ss into high and low groups. The median split overcame the criticism expressed by Vacchiano, et al. (1969) that "most researchers . . . fail to include a full range of dogmatism scores in their study samples, using only HD [very highly dogmatic] and LD [very low dogmatic] extremes." This procedure also permitted dogmatism scores to be treated as relational measures for comparative purposes, thus avoiding the use of population norms which might be faulty. The Kolrnogorov-Smirnov two-sample test was utilized to compare the frequency distributions of exposure to discrepant candidates for Ss high and low in dogmatism. This nonparametric analytical technique is sensitive to any differences in the distributions of two samples, and it is useful in testing if the values of one distribution tend to be larger than those of the other (Siegel, 1956). RESULTSAND DISCUSSION Findings of the analysis supported the hypothesis that highly dogmatic Ss selectively exposed themselves to less discrepant political information than Ss comparatively low in dogmatism. The frequency distributions based on exposure differed significantly at the .02 level in the predicted direction, in a 8.96, df = 2 ). Exposure among one-tailed test, between the two groups (x" low scorers was consistently higher over the two-thirds of the distribution range which reflected the greatest degree of discrepancy between the views of the candidate and S. It might be noted at this juncture that dogmatism scores ranged from 29 to 103 with 67 as the median.
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDlDATES
42 7
The differences in exposure between low- and high-dogmatic groups are depicted graphically in Fig. 1 where the X-axis refleccs in descending order from left to right the amount of perceived discrepancy. The Y-axis measures the cumulative frequency of exposure, the percentage of total exposures. Together the two axes show the percentage of total exposures, by S group, to information having a perceived discrepancy greater than a stated amount. For example, over 17% of all exposures by low-dogmatic Ss were to candidates having a discrepancy rating of 86 or more on a O- to 100-point scale.
.-w 0
E 0
20
....
Low dogmatism
High dogmatism
a...........
-
Degree of Perceived Discrepancy FIG. 1. Dogmatism and frequency of exposure
The differences between the two S groups in exposure were most pronounced where the discrepancy in views was more than 50 points. This level of discrepancy is portrayed on the left side of Fig. 1. In this range, S was more in disagreement than agreement with the candidate. Consequently, these candi-
428
R. M. DURAND
& Z.
V. LAMBERT
dates or at least the information conveyed in their speeches would be the most threatening and anxiety producing to highly dogmatic Ss, according to Rokeach's conceptualization of dogmatism. It is noteworthy that on a percentage basis cumulative exposures in the 61- to 100-point discrepancy range ran from 40 to 137% higher among lowdogmatic Ss. For example, 9.38% of exposures for highly dogmatic Ss were in the 8 1 to 100 range, whereas 18.87% or more than twice as many exposures for the low-dogmatic Ss were in this segment. As the graph in the upper right hand corner of Fig. 1 indicates, a slightly smaller proportion of exposures of low-dogmatic Ss, relative to high-dogmatic ones, were to candidates with whom Ss substantially agreed (20 points or less discrepancy). The absolute difference in the proportions between the two groups of Ss might be interpreted as implying that low-dogmatic Ss, when given a choice, may be slightly more likely to decide on hearing a candidate with discrepant rather than similar political views to their own. The difference in the proportions, however, was not significant ( p > .05). It might be mentioned that low scorers indicated they would attend, on the average, 5.76 speeches. In comparison, highly dogmatic Ss indicated a 4.91 average attendance rate. Again, the difference was in the expected direction since, according to conceptualizations by Rokeach and others, low scorers, having a strong need to know, seek the most information. In summarizing, the findings indicated that the extent of selective exposure to discrepant political candidates was negatively related to the amount of dogmatism within an individual's cognitive system. In other words, Ss low in dogmatism seemed to expose themselves to more information that was discrepant with their political beliefs than did the highly dogmatic Ss. The greater a person's commitment to particular political views the more intense this relationship probably becomes. These findings have implications that extend beyond the political realm. One would expect similar relationships between dogmatism and selective exposure to prevail in the case of other public issues, particularly when the issues impinge on beliefs that are central to the individual's values or that involve high commitment by the individual. The presence of such relationships would serve to affect the speed and magnitude of changes in public beliefs and opinions. A related, unsurprising finding was that both high and low scorers in practicing selective exposure seemed to prefer mainly information consistent with their beliefs. Although the two groups differed significantly, over 60% of total exposures in both cases fell into the 0- to 50-point discrepancy range. That is to say, over 60% of all Ss preferred mostly consistent information. This finding paralleled the observations of other researchers (Kleck & Wheaton, 1967).
DOGMATISM AND POLITICAL CANDIDATES REFERENCES BYRNE, D., BLAYLOCK,B., & GOLDBERG,J. Dogmatism and defense mechanisms. Psychological Reports, 1966, 18, 739-742. EHRLICH,H. J., & LEE. D. Dogmatism, learning, and resistance to change: a review and a new paradigm. P ~ y c h o l o g i c ~Bulletin, l 1969, 71, 243-2150. KIRKPATRICK,S. Political attitude structure and component change. Public Opinion Quarterly, 1970, 34, 403-407. KLECK, R. E., & WHEATON, J. Dogmatism and responses to opinion-consistent and opinion-inconsistent information. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1967, 5, 249-252. LEVY, S. G., RUSSELL,J. C., KIMMEL,M. J., CARRICK, K., & BURNASKA,R. F. Dogmatism, locus of control of reinforcement, importance of issues, and relationships to political activiry. Iousnal o f Applied Social Psychology, 1973, 3, 119-13 1. LONG, B. H., & ZILLER,R. C. Dogmatism and predecisional information search. lournal o f Applied Psychology, 1965, 49, 376-378. POWELL,F. A. Open- and closed-mindedness and the ability to differentiate source and message. J O U T Mo~f Abnormal and Socidl Psychology, 1962, 65, 61-64, ROKEACH,M. The nature and meaning of dogmatism. Psychological Review, 1954. 61. 194-204. ROKEACH,M. T h e open upid closed mind. New York: Basic Books, 1960. ROKMCH, M. In pursuit of the creative process. In G. A. Steiner (Ed.), T h e creative organization. Chicago: Univer. of Chicago Press. 1965. Pp. 66-88. SEARS,D. 0. Political behavior. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.). Handbook o f social psychology. Vol. 5. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1969. Pp. 337344. SHERIP,C. W., SHERIF,M., & NEBERGALL,R. Attitude and attitude change. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1965. SHERROD,D. R. Selective prcepcion of political candidates. Public Opinion Qucrrterly, 1972.. 35.. 554-562. SIEGEL,S. Nonparamsl~ic statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York: McGrawHill. 1956. TRODAHL,V. C., & POWELL,F. A. A short-form dogmatism scale for use in field studies. Social Forces, 1965, 44, 211-214. VACCHIANO,R. B., S'IRAUSS,P. S., & HOCHMAN. L. The open and closed mind: a review of dogmatism. Psychological Bulletin, 1969, 71, 261-273.
Accepted December 31, 1974.
