Authoritarian Aggression and Social Stratification: A Research Note

Abstract

Ever since Seymour Martin Lipset's famous paper on authoritarianism and the left(1959), it has been widely assumed that blue collar workers are uniquely susceptible to the temptations of hate. Thisassumption was tested and (itseemed) confirmed by Melvin Kahn & Carmi Schooler (1983), among others. Yet in our recent research we have found contrary evidence - evidence suggesting, in fact, that comparatively high status professionals are significantly more authoritarian than other strata of the workforce. The starting point for this research was our hypothesis that the attitude questions in Erik Olin Wright's 15-nation study of Class Structure and Class Consciousness might correlate with Bob Altemeyer's time-tested "Rigbt Wing Authoritarianism" scale. Early tests of this thesis indicate that this seems to be true,at the .70 level;and subsequent analysis of Wright's first United States survey (1980) reveals a number of further correlations. Most notably, and contrary to the oft -reported findings ofKahn & Schooler, we found that white collar "experts" in Wright's study appear to have significantly more aggressive and authoritarian attitudes than lower status workers. (Their mean authoritarianism scores, respectively, are 2.85 and 2.31) These are preliminary findings, to be sure, and we are certainly not trying to vindicate the old chestnut that classical working-class status guarantees virtue - but if in fact this finding is borne out in further studies, it may prove important.