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Citation Pratto, Felicia, James Sidanius, Lisa M. Stallworth, and Bertram F. Malle. 1994. Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, no. 4: 741-763.

Published Version http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.741

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1994, Vol. 67, No. 4, 741-763

Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/94/S3.00

Social Dominance Orientation: A Personality Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes

Felicia Pratto, Jim Sidanius, Lisa M. Stallworth, and Bertram F. Malle

Social dominance orientation (SDO), one's degree of preference for inequality among social groups, is introduced. On the basis of social dominance theory, it is shown that (a) men are more social dominance-oriented than women, (b) high-SDO people seek hierarchy-enhancing professional roles and low-SDO people seek hierarchy-attenuating roles, (c) SDO was related to beliefs in a large num- ber of social and political ideologies that support group-based hierarchy (e.g., meritocracy and rac- ism) and to support for policies that have implications for intergroup relations (e.g., war, civil rights, and social programs), including new policies. SDO was distinguished from interpersonal dominance, conservatism, and authoritarianism. SDO was negatively correlated with empathy, tolerance, com- munality, and altruism. The ramifications of SDO in social context are discussed.

Group conflict and group-based inequality are pervasive in human existence. Currently, every continent is enduring some form of ethnic conflict, from the verbal debate over multicul- turalism in the United States and Canada to civil war in Liberia and Bosnia. Other conflicts between groups are ancient: the Eu- ropean persecution of Jews, "Holy Wars" waged by Christians and Muslims around the Mediterranean, imperialism in South America, and anti-Black racism in northern Africa and else- where. Regardless of the intensity of the conflict, the partici- pants justify their behavior to others by appealing to historical injustices, previous territorial boundaries, religious prohibi- tions, genetic and cultural theories of in-group superiority, or other such ideologies.

Prompted by the ubiquitous nature of group-based prejudice and oppression, we developed social dominance theory (see Pratto, in press; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1993a). The theory postulates that societies minimize group conflict by cre- ating consensus on ideologies that promote the superiority of one group over others (see also Sidanius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). Ideologies that promote or maintain group inequality are the tools that legitimize discrimination. To work smoothly, these ideologies must be widely accepted within a so- ciety, appearing as self-apparent truths; hence we call them hi- erarchy-legitimizing myths.' By contributing to consensual or

normalized group-based inequality, legitimizing myths help to stabilize oppression. That is, they minimize conflict among groups by indicating how individuals and social institutions should allocate things of positive or negative social value, such as jobs, gold, blankets, government appointments, prison terms, and disease. For example, the ideology of anti-Black racism has been instantiated in personal acts of discrimination, but also in institutional discrimination against African-Americans by banks, public transit authorities, schools, churches, marriage laws, and the penal system. Social Darwinism and meritocracy are examples of other ideologies that imply that some people are not as "good" as others and therefore should be allocated less positive social value than others.

Thus far, we have given examples of legitimizing myths that enhance or maintain the degree of social inequality. Other ide- ologies may serve to attenuate the amount of inequality. For example, the "universal rights of man" and the view summa- rized by "all humans are God's children" are inclusive, egali- tarian ideologies that explicitly do not divide persons into cate- gories or groups. To the extent that such ideologies are widely shared, there should be less group inequality. There are, then, two varieties of legitimizing myths: hierarchy-enhancing legiti- mizing myths, which promote greater degrees of social inequal- ity, and hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing myths, which pro- mote greater social equality.

Felicia Pratto, Lisa M. Stallworth, and Bertram F. Malle, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; Jim Sidanius, Department of Psy- chology, University of California at Los Angeles.

We are grateful to a number of people for their diligence and creativity in this research: Erron Al-Amin, Jill Andrassy, Sahr Conway-Lanz, Nick Clements, Magda Escobar, Jack Glaser, Louis Ibarra, Kent Harber, John Hetts, Amy Lee, Johanna Jensen, John Moore, Jenn Pearson, Holly Schaefer, Margaret Shih, Stacey Sinclair, Gayatri Taneja, Jack Wang, and Wes Williams. Bob Altemeyer, Monisha Pasupathi, Vernon Schabert, Michael Mitchell, Steve Gangestad, Corinne Kosmitzki, Ted Goertzel, and three anonymous reviewers provided useful comments on a draft of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Felicia Pratto, Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2130.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION

Given our theoretical postulate that acceptance of legitimiz- ing myths has significant influence on the degree of inequality in societies, it is quite important to understand the factors that lead to the acceptance or rejection of ideologies that promote or attenuate inequality. Social dominance theory postulates that a

1 The term myth is meant to imply that everyone in the society per- ceives these ideologies as explanations for how the world is—not that they are false (or true). Social dominance theory is meant only to de- scribe the social and psychological processes that act on these ideologies, not to ascertain whether these ideologies are true, fair, moral, or reasonable.

741

742 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

significant factor is an individual-difference variable called so- cial dominance orientation (SDO), or the extent to which one desires that one's in-group dominate and be superior to out- groups. We consider SDO to be a general attitudinal orientation toward intergroup relations, reflecting whether one generally prefers such relations to be equal, versus hierarchical, that is, ordered along a superior-inferior dimension. The theory postu- lates that people who are more social-dominance oriented will tend to favor hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and policies, whereas those lower on SDO will tend to favor hierarchy-atten- uating ideologies and policies. SDO is thus the central individ- ual-difference variable that predicts a person's acceptance or re- jection of numerous ideologies and policies relevant to group relations.

Another way that individuals' levels of SDO may influence their contribution to social equality or inequality is in the kinds of social roles they take on, particularly, roles that either en- hance or attenuate inequality. We thus predict that those who are higher on SDO will become members of institutions and choose roles that maintain or increase social inequality, whereas those who are lower on SDO will belong to institutions and choose roles that reduce inequality.

The purpose of the present research was to demonstrate that individual variation in SDO exists and to show that this con- struct behaves according to the theory outlined above. Specifi- cally, our goals were (a) to develop a measure of SDO that is internally and temporally reliable, (b) to show that SDO is re- lated to the attitudinal and social role variables specified by so- cial dominance theory (predictive validity), (c) to show that the measure is not redundant with other attitude predictors and standard personality variables (discriminant validity), and (d) to show that SDO serves as an orientation in shaping new attitudes.

HYPOTHESES

The first set of hypotheses we tested was derived from social dominance theory and concerned those variables to which SDO should strongly relate, termed predictive validity. The second set of hypotheses, termed discriminant validity, states either that SDO should be independent of other variables or that SDO should have predictive value in addition to the effects of these other variables. We also hypothesized that SDO should relate moderately to certain other personality variables, from which SDO is conceptually distinct. The third set of hypotheses we tested concerns SDO's power to predict new social attitudes.

Predictive Validity

Gender

The world over, men and women hold different roles with re- gard to the maintenance of hierarchy. Ubiquitously, men serve as military leaders and hold leadership roles in religious, social, political, and cultural spheres (e.g., Brown, 1991, pp. 110, 137). Moreover, men hold more hierarchy-enhancing attitudes, such as support for ethnic prejudice, racism, capitalism, and right- wing political parties, than do women (e.g., Avery, 1988; Eisler & Loye, 1983; Ekehammar & Sidanius, 1982; Shapiro & Ma- hajan, 1986; Sidanius & Ekehammar, 1980; see review by Si-

danius, Cling, & Pratto, 1991). On the basis of these general societal patterns, we have predicted and shown that, on average, men are more social dominance-oriented than women (see Pratto, Sidanius, & Stallworth, 1993; Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, in press). We tested this hypothesis with the measure of SDO developed in the present research.

Legitimizing Myths

Ethnic Prejudice

One of the major kinds of ideology concerning relative group status is ethnic prejudice. In the United States, the most long- standing and widely disseminated version of ethnic prejudice is anti-Black racism. Therefore, we predicted that SDO would be strongly related to anti-Black racism in the present U.S. sam- ples. In the United States, a theoretical and empirical debate about how best to measure anti-Black racism has been con- ducted for some time (e.g., see Bobo, 1983; McConahay, 1986; Sears, 1988;Sniderman&Tetlock, 1986a, 1986b). Social domi- nance theory merely postulates that SDO should predict what- ever ideologies are potent within the culture at the time of mea- surement. From our theoretical viewpoint, it does not matter whether the basis for racism is fairness (e.g., Kluegel & Smith, 1986), genetic or biblical racial inferiority theories, symbolic racism (e.g., Sears, 1988), or family pathology (e.g., Moynihan, 1965). Any potent ideology that describes groups as unequal and has policy implications is a legitimizing myth and should, therefore, correlate with SDO. During the period the present research was conducted, our subjects' country was engaged in a war against Iraq, so we also measured anti-Arab racism and expected it to correlate with SDO.

Nationalism

A more general kind of in-group prejudice that can occur in nation-states is nationalism, chauvinism, or patriotism. Koster- man and Feshbach (1989) suggested that procountry feelings (patriotism) can be distinguished from comparative prejudice, that is, that one's country is better than other countries (nation- alism), and as such should dominate other countries (chauvin- ism). Even so, all three reflect attitudinal bias in favor of the national in-group, and thus we postulated that patriotism, na- tionalism, and chauvinism would all be significantly related to SDO.

Cultural Elitism

All societies share the idea that one of the defining features of those who belong to their society (are part of the in-group, or are considered by them to be human) is that they are "cultured." In some societies, including English and American society, an elitist ideology built on the cultured-not cultured distinction postulates that the elite class has "culture" not shared by mid- dle- and working-class people and is therefore more deserving of the "finer things in life." We term this legitimizing myth cul- tural elitism, and we expected it to correlate with SDO as well.

Sexism

We believe that antifemale sexism is a ubiquitous legitimizing myth, although, as with ethnic prejudice, the content basis of

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 743

sexist ideology varies widely with religion, cultural history, and technology. In the present U.S. samples, we used scales that as- sess sexism as the extent to which people believe men and women are "naturally" different and should have different work roles outside and inside the home (Benson & Vincent, 1980; Rombough & Ventimiglia, 1981) and the extent to which people believe that women rather than men can be blamed for un- wanted sexual advances such as rape and sexual harassment (Burt, 1980). We predicted that all of these would be positively correlated with SDO, even controlling for subject sex.

Political-Economic Conservatism

Political-economic conservatism is associated with support for capitalism versus socialism (e.g., Eysenck, 1971). Given that capitalism implies that some people and businesses should thrive, while those who are less "competitive" should not, we consider political-economic conservatism to be a hierarchy-en- hancing legitimizing myth that should positively correlate with SDO (see also Sidanius & Pratto, 1993b). Other policies sup- ported by conservatives, such as that women should stay home with children and that the USSR must be kept in its place, di- vide people into groups "deserving" different treatment, so we feel conservatism generally can be viewed as a legitimizing myth. In fact, Wilson's extensive work on the body of attitudes that make up conservatism shows that a preference for hierar- chical social relationships is one of conservatism's many dimen- sions (Wilson, 1973, p. 22).

Noblesse Oblige

A hierarchy-attenuating ideology that exists in many cultures is that those with more resources should share them with those who have fewer resources (e.g., the Marxist maxim, "From each according to his [sic] ability, to each according to his need," and the potlatch custom of the Kwakiutl). The English-American version is called noblesse oblige, which we expected to be nega- tively correlated with SDO.

Meritocracy

Another hierarchy-enhancing ideology is that wealth and other social values are already distributed appropriately, based on the deservingness of the recipients. The Protestant work ethic and just world theory are examples of meritocratic ideol- ogies, so we administered standard measures of belief in the Protestant work ethic and belief in a just world and predicted that they would be positively correlated with SDO. In the United States, attributions for poverty due to laziness or to some other inherent fault in the poor are predicated on the idea that equal opportunity is available to all (Kluegel & Smith, 1986), so we wrote an equal opportunity scale and predicted that it would correlate positively with SDO.

Social Policy Attitudes

According to social dominance theory, individuals who are social dominance oriented will favor social practices that main- tain or exacerbate inequality among groups and will oppose so- cial practices that reduce group inequality. The particular social policies that correlate with SDO may vary from society to soci-

ety, but we predicted that SDO would relate to support for, or opposition to, the following policies in U.S. samples.

Social Welfare, Civil Rights, and Environmental Policies

We expected SDO to correlate with opposition to social poli- cies that would reduce inequality between U.S. nationals and foreigners or immigrants, rich and middle class or poor, men and women, ethnic groups, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and humans versus other species. As such, we measured our subjects' attitudes toward a variety of government social pro- grams, racial and sexual discrimination laws, gay and lesbian rights, domination of foreigners, and environmental policies. In several samples we also assessed attitudes toward "interracial dating" and "interracial marriage," because miscegenation has been central to the U.S. racial policy debate.

Military Policy

Because the military is a symbol of nationalism and can be one of the chief means of domination of one nation over others, we expected SDO to correlate positively with expressed support for military programs and actions.

Punitive Policies

Despite its stated creed to enact equality before the law, the U.S. criminal justice system shows class and ethnic bias at all levels from arrest to plea bargaining to sentencing (e.g., Bienen, Alan, Denno, Allison, & Mills, 1988; General Accounting Office, 1990; Kleck, 1981; Nickerson, Mayo, & Smith, 1986; Paternoster, 1983; Radelet & Pierce, 1985; Reiman, 1990; Si- danius, 1988). As one example, in a review of 1,804 homicide cases in South Carolina, Paternoster (1983) found that in cases where Blacks killed Whites, rather than other Blacks, prosecu- tors were 40 times more likely to request the death penalty. For this reason, we expected support for "law and order" or punitive policies, particularly the death penalty, to be positively related to SDO (see also Mitchell, 1993; Sidanius, Liu, Pratto, & Shaw, 1994).

Discriminant Validity

Interpersonal Dominance

SDO, or preference for unequal relationships among catego- ries of people, is conceptually distinguishable from the common personality conception of interpersonal dominance, which con- cerns the extent to which individuals like to be in charge and are efficacious. For example, people who score high on the Califor- nia Personality Inventory (CPI) Dominance scale are confident, assertive, dominant, and task oriented, whereas people who score low are unassuming and nonforceful (Gough, 1987, p. 6). People who score high on the Jackson Personality Research Form (JPRF) Dominance scale attempt to control their envi- ronments and influence or direct other people; they are forceful, decisive, authoritative, and domineering (Jackson, 1965). We tested this theoretical distinction between social and task or in- terpersonal dominance by using the CPI and JPRF Dominance subscales in several samples reported here. We predicted that SDO would not correlate with these two measures.

744 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Authoritarianism

There is clearly some theoretical similarity in the effects of social dominance theory's SDO construct and authoritarian personality theory's authoritarian construct (see Adorno, Fren- kel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950). High-SDO people and authoritarian personalities are theorized to be relatively conservative, racist, ethnocentric, and prejudiced, and they should show little empathy for lower status others. Our concep- tion of SDO, however, differs from classical authoritarianism in several respects. First, classical authoritarian theorists viewed authoritarianism as an aberrant and pathological condition and as a form of ego-defense against feelings of inadequacy and vul- nerability (see also Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948, 1949). SDO, how- ever, is not conceived of in clinical terms, as an aberrant person- ality type, or as a form of ego-defense. Rather, SDO is conceived of as a "normal" human propensity on which people vary. Sec- ond, authoritarian personality theory emphasized the sources of authoritarianism as springing from psychodynamic pro- cesses. Specifically, Adorno et al. (1950) postulated that strict and harsh parental styles would provoke conflicts between the child and parents that would be "unresolved." As a way of re- solving these, the child as an adult would submit to authorities and be intolerant of those who would not. In contrast, we theo- rize that such a personal history is unnecessary to developing a relatively high SDO tendency. Rather, both temperament and socialization probably influence one's level of SDO. Third and most important, whereas authoritarianism is primarily con- ceived as a desire for individual dominance resulting from ex- periences with authority figures, SDO is regarded as the desire that some categories of people dominate others. Because the two constructs are defined differently, measurements of each should not be highly correlated.

Given that authoritarianism should predict many of the same variables we postulate SDO should predict, it is important for us to show that SDO has explanatory value in addition to au- thoritarianism. We tested the "marginal utility" of the SDO construct by testing whether correlations between SDO and support for legitimizing myths and policies are significant after partialing out authoritarianism.

Conservatism

Political-economic conservatism serves as a legitimizing myth in our theory, and thus we expect it to correlate positively with SDO. Conservatism is also a well-known robust predictor of social and political attitudes (e.g., Eysenck & Wilson, 1978; Wilson, 1973). To show that SDO has utility in addition to po- litical-economic conservatism, we tested whether SDO substan- tially correlated with social attitudes after partialing out conservatism.

Standard Personality Variables

Because we think our concept of SDO is a yet unstudied per- sonality dimension, we expected it to be independent of other standard personality variables such as self-esteem and the Big- Five personality dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness (see Costa & MacRae, 1985; John, 1990, for reviews).

Empathy, Altruism, Communality, and Tolerance

People who are highly empathic with others would seem to be less prejudiced and discriminatory against out-groups. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a general concern for other people to be negatively correlated with SDO. Similarly, any general pro- social orientation might mitigate prejudiced feelings and behav- iors toward out-group members, so altruism should be nega- tively correlated with SDO. Furthermore, people who are quite inclusive in their definitions of what constitutes an in-group should be less able to discriminate against out-groups, so we expected communality to be negatively correlated with SDO. And finally, because tolerance is the antithesis of prejudice, we might expect that a general measure of tolerance would be neg- atively correlated with a general desire for in-group superiority. We used Davis' (1983) multidimensional empathy scale, Super and Nevill's (1985) altruism subscale, the Personal Attribute Questionnaire (PAQ) Communality scale (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974), and the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) Tolerance scale (Jackson, 1976) to test these hypotheses. If SDO has merit as a new personality variable, none of these corre- lations should be very high.

PRESENT RESEARCH

Overview

We examined data from 13 samples to test the predictive and discriminant validity and reliability of our measure of SDO. Our logic in using this large number of samples is to examine statistically significant results that are reliable across samples. We organized the results by topic, but we report the results in each sample so that the reader can see the magnitude of effects in each sample and the stability of the results across samples. At the end of the Results section, we provide a summary of the results in the form of meta-analyses.

Data Collection

Generally, subjects were college students who participated in a study called "Social Attitudes" for partial course credit. All of their responses were anonymous and confidential, and they completed batteries of self-administered questionnaires. Sub- jects in Samples 2, 3b, 5,6,8, 9, and 13 spent about 1 hr in our laboratory completing the questionnaires. The experimenter described the study as designed to measure students' social atti- tudes and personal preferences. Subjects in Samples 1 and 13 completed the SDO scale after participating in unrelated exper- iments, and subjects in the remaining samples completed the SDO scale and follow-up scales in two consecutive mass-testing sessions normally conducted on subject pool participants. All subjects completed a demographic background sheet and our 14-item SDO scale intermixed with related items, a National- ism scale based on Kosterman and Feshbach's (1989) measure, along with other attitude or experience measures, each having their own instructions and response scales. We also adminis- tered some standard personality or attitude scales according to the instructions of their authors. In several samples we also administered ideological (legitimizing myths) or policy attitude items on a questionnaire entitled "Policy Issues Questionnaire."

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 745

Measures

SDO

In previous archival studies, we measured proxies for SDO using items dealing with equality from the National Election Study or the S6 Conservatism scale (see Sidanius, 1976). In de- veloping the present measure of SDO, we tested over 70 items whose content we felt related to SDO or to constructs one can define as separate but that might be considered adjacent to SDO (e.g., nationalism and prestige-striving), following Loevinger's (1957) suggestion about scale construction. However, on the ba- sis of our desire to develop a simple, unidimensional scale that is balanced, we selected 14 items from this extensive question- naire as the SDO scale. The selected items concerned the belief that some people are inherently superior or inferior to others and approval of unequal group relationships (see items in Ap- pendix A). The 14-item SDO scale was balanced in that half the items indicated approval of inequality and half indicated approval of equality (see items in Appendix A). We assume that these items tap a latent construct and so we are interested in the relationships between the scale mean and other measures rather than relationships between individual SDO items and other measures.

SDO is an attitudinal orientation, so instructions read, "Which of the following objects or statements do you have a positive or negative feeling towards? Beside each object or state- ment, place a number from' 1' to '7' which represents the degree of your positive or negative feeling." The scale was labeled very positive (7), positive (6), slightly positive (5), neither positive nor negative (4), slightly negative (3), negative (2), and very negative (1).

The order of the SDO items and the filler items differed among Form A, completed by Samples 1, 2, 3, and 4; Form B, completed by Samples 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12; and Form C, com- pleted by Samples 9, 10, and 11. The format and instructions for the three forms were identical, and we saw no evidence that results pertinent to reliability or validity issues differed across the questionnaire form. Subsequent to the present research, we have used just the 14 items on a questionnaire and found reli- ability coefficients of .90 and predictive validity results similar to those reported below.

Political-Economic Conservatism

Some of the standard scales assessing political-economic con- servatism actually measure individuals' support for particular social policies (e.g., the C-scale, Wilson & Patterson, 1968). Be- cause we wished to measure political-economic conservatism separately from policy attitudes, and because we wanted to use a measure that should not vary with time and place, we used a self-identified liberal-conservative measure in all samples. On the demographic background sheet, the political-economic con- servatism question read, "Use one of the following numbers to indicate your political views in the accompanying categories." Below these instructions was a scale labeled very liberal (1), lib- eral (2), slightly liberal (3), middle of the road (4), slightly con- servative (5), conservative (6), and very conservative (7) and a blank next to each type of issue: "foreign policy issues," "eco- nomic issues," and "social issues." Political-economic conser- vatism was the mean of self-ratings on these three items.

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism research has been fraught with measure- ment difficulties. After surveying the authoritarianism mea- surement literature, we decided to administer two rather different measures of authoritarianism, both of which are bal- anced: the Right Wing Authoritarian (RWA) scale by Altemeyer (1981) and Goertzel's (1987) bipolar personality measure. Goertzel (1987) intended his adjective checklist to measure the personality rather than the ideological aspect of authoritarian- ism, but did show that it correlates with attitudes toward poli- cies falling along toughness and consistency dimensions. Alte- meyer's (1981) scale is the only other internally reliable measure of authoritarianism that is close to the original conception of authoritarianism, including conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and authoritarian aggression (see Duckitt, 1989, for a review).

Original Legitimizing Myths and Policy Attitudes

The consent form and instructions informed subjects that their opinions and preferences toward a variety of ideas, kinds of people, events, and so forth would be measured. On our "Pol- icy Issues Questionnaire" we included items from various legit- imizing myth or policy attitude scales. Items from each scale were interspersed throughout the questionnaire. Next to each item was a 1-7 scale, and the instructions read, "Which of the following objects, events, or statements do you have a positive or negative feeling towards? Please indicate your feelings by cir- cling the appropriate number alongside each item. Use one of the following responses. Remember, your first reaction is best. Work as quickly as you can." The scale points were labeled very negative (1), negative (2), slightly negative (3), uncertain or neu- tral (A), slightly positive (5), positive (6), and very positive (7).

Items from the original legitimizing myths and policy atti- tude scales were selected for their content and for their internal reliability across samples. These scales are shown in Appendix B. Several personality measures were used as well; these are de- scribed in the Method section.

Method

Subjects

Although our 1,952 subjects were college students, they represent some diversity in terms of sex, ethnicity, and income groups, coming from public and private universities in California. Demographic infor- mation about the samples is shown in Table 1.

Samples and Procedures

Sample 1 (spring 1990) consisted of 98 University of California at Berkeley undergraduates who completed the CPI Dominance, Flexibil- ity, and Capacity for Status subscales (Gough, 1987), the JPRF Domi- nance subscale (Jackson, 1965), the JPI Tolerance subscale (Jackson, 1976), and the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (RSE).

Sample 2 (fall and winter 1990-1991) consisted of 463 San Jose State University (SJSU) undergraduates who completed the CPI and JPRF Dominance subscales; Mirels and Garrett's (1971) Protestant Work Ethic Scale; the Just World Scale (Rubin & Peplau, 1975); the four- factor Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), which measures empathy (Davis, 1983); a number of policy attitude measures; and some demo- graphic descriptors.

746 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Table 1 Description of Samples

Measure

n Age range % men % women

% Euro-American % Asian-American % Hispanic % Black % Arab-American

Under 20K 20-30K 30-40K 40-55K 55-7OK 70-100K 100-150K 15O-2OOK 200K.+

1

98 17-34

50 50

48 23 13 15

1

2

463 15-56

47 53

38 40

8 5 2

12 9

11 17 20 14 8 5 5

3a

81 17-21

3b

57 17-21

51 49

58 16 4

14 6

4 5

Sample

6

Age and gender breakdown

190

47 53

144 17-35

49 51

49 17-23

69 31

Ethnic breakdown

38 40

8 5 2

53 24 10 8 0

59 24 15 2 0

Family income

10 8 5

10 10 21 15 13 8

21 16 12 8

19 14 6 3 1

6 6 8

10 10 19 19 11 11

7

224

50 50

49 25 10 6 1

8

115 17-59

40 60

29 51 14 2 3

17 13 13 15 17 13 5 2 5

9

97 17-36

33 67

19 45 17 10 8

19 15 17 12 15 9 2 3 6

10

231

54 46

67 22

4 4 1

11

100

12

135

59 41

50 33 10 4 1

13

46

100 0

52 33 11 0 4

Note. Missing numbers indicate that information was not available. Samples 4, 7, 10-13 are probably similar in age distribution and range to Sample 3. Income was self-reported annual family income in thousands of dollars.

Sample 3a (September, 1990) consisted of 81 Stanford University un- dergraduates who completed the SDO scale as part of a mass-testing session. Sample 3b included 57 subjects from the same population who participated in a study in our lab in December, 1990, during which they completed the SDO scale again and a number of attitude and personal- ity measures. The overlap of these two samples (N = 25 with complete data) was used to assess the cross-time reliability of SDO.

Sample 4 (January, 1991) consisted of 190 Stanford University un- dergraduates who completed the SDO scale and an attitude scale about the Iraq war assessing environmental concerns in the war, anti-Arab racism, willingness to sacrifice for the war, willingness to restrict civil liberties for the war effort, and support for the use of military force by the United States against Iraq.

Sample 5 (fall 1991) consisted of 144 SJSU undergraduates who com- pleted the RSE (Rosenberg, 1965), the Rombough and Ventimiglia (1981) Tri-Dimensional Sexism Scale, the Sexist Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Benson & Vincent, 1980), the Rape Myths Scale (Burt, 1980), the Altruism subscale from the Values Scale (Super & Nevill, 1985), and the IRI (Davis, 1983). We also measured policy attitudes toward gay rights, women's equality policies, militarism, punitiveness, racial policies, and environmental policies. In addition, we measured ideologies such as anti-Black racism, elitism, patriotism, belief in equal opportunity, and opposition to miscegenation.

Sample 6 (September, 1991) consisted of 49 Stanford undergraduates who completed the same measures as subjects in Sample 5.

Sample 7 (September, 1991) consisted of 224 Stanford undergradu- ates who completed a battery of personality questions, including Malle and Horowitz's (1994) bipolar descriptions of Factors I (Extraversion), II (Agreeableness), IV (Neuroticism), and V (Conscientiousness) of the Big-Five personality dimensions (see John, 1990, for a review). A few weeks later, in the 3 days including and following the day Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, those subjects who had

given their prior permission were telephoned and asked four questions about their opinions regarding this Supreme Court nomination. In all, 149 subjects were reached by telephone, and the response rate was 100%.

Sample 8 (February, 1992) consisted of 115 Stanford undergraduates who completed the PAQ (Spence et al., 1974), CPI Dominance scale (Gough, 1987), JPRF Dominance scale (Jackson, 1965), JPI Tolerance scale (Jackson, 1976), IRI (Davis, 1983), RSE (Rosenberg, 1965), a post-Iraq war attitude survey, a general war attitude survey, and a num- ber of other policy attitude measures similar to those in Sample 5.

Sample 9 (April, 1992) consisted of 97 SJSU undergraduates. They completed the CPI and JPRF Dominance subscales; the JPI Tolerance subscale; the IRI; the Protestant Work Ethic Scale; all 19 of the author- itarian bipolar adjective choices (Goertzel, 1987); Altemeyer's (1981) 30-item RWA Scale; John, Donahue, and Kentle's (1992) Big-Five Per- sonality Inventory; the PAQ; McConahay's (1986) Modern Racism Scale; and Katz and Hass' (1988) Pro-Black, Anti-Black, and Humani- tarian-Egalitarian Scales. They also completed a number of policy atti- tude items similar to those for Sample 5.

Sample 10 (March, 1992) consisted of 231 Stanford undergraduates who completed the SDO scale. Two weeks later, 176 of these subjects completed a comprehensive survey about their ideologies and general attitudes about the death penalty and their attitude about the execution of Robert Alton Harris, who was executed by the state of California the day before the survey was administered.

Sample 11 (March, 1991) consisted of 100 Stanford University un- dergraduates who completed the SDO scale and a battery of other ques- tionnaires including Snyder's (1974) self-monitoring scales; Fenigstein, Scheier, and Buss' (1975) Self-Consciousness scales; and Malle and Ho- rowitz' (1994) bipolar adjective versions of Factors I and IV of the Big- Five personality dimensions.

Sample 12 (January, 1992) included 139 Stanford undergraduates

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 747

who completed the SDO scale in a mass-testing session. Of these, 70 also completed Malle and Horowitz' (1994) measures of Factors I and IV.

Sample 13 included 46 undergraduate men at Stanford during 1990- 1991 who were selected to be in an experiment on the basis of having either extremely high or low SDO scores in Samples 3,4, and 11. They participated in the experiment between 6 weeks and 8 months after their first testing and completed the SDO scale again.

Results

We first present the internal and temporal reliability of our SDO scale. We then examine whether this measure related to the ideological, policy attitude, and hierarchy role variables pre- dicted by social dominance theory. We show that SDO was ei- ther independent of other personality variables with which it might be confused or that it predicted the attitudinal outcomes over and above the effects of these other variables. We also show that it was not redundant with other personality measures. Fi- nally, we show that SDO predicted new social and political atti- tudes. To summarize the results across samples, we report sim- ple averages of the internal reliability coefficients across samples and averaged correlations across samples using Fisher's z-to-r transformation.

Reliability of the SDO Measure

Unidimensionality

We conducted two kinds of analyses to confirm that the 14 SDO items assessed a single construct. First, within each sam- ple, principal-components analyses of the 14 SDO items showed that a single dimension captured the bulk of the vari- ance in these items. That is, there was a precipitous drop be- tween the values of the first and second eigenvalues in every sample. Second, we subjected our largest sample, Sample 2 {N = 446 with complete data on all SDO items) to confirmatory factor analysis. Using maximum-likelihood estimation, we tested a model in which all 14 items were driven by a single latent construct. Each item had a statistically significant rela- tionship to the latent factor (ps < .0001). By freeing only 3 of 91 possible off-diagonal elements of the 66 matrix,

2 we obtained a satisfactory x

2/dfratio of 2.89 (e.g., Carmines & Mclver, 1981), suggesting that our data are consistent with a model in which a single dimension underlies responses to all the items. Thus, the 14 items appear to measure a unitary construct.

Internal Reliability

Item statistics showed that the 14-item SDO scale showed good internal reliability across all samples, averaging a = .83 (see internal reliability coefficients and item statistics by sample in Table 2). Item analyses also showed that all items were highly correlated with the remainder of the scale in every sample. The average lowest item-total correlation across samples was .31 and the average highest item-total correlation across samples was .63. Item 7 had the lowest item-total correlation in 4 of 12 independent samples (Z = 3.52, p < .001). Item 9 had the high- est item-total correlation in 3 samples (Z = 2.40, p < .01). No other items were either the most or least correlated across sam- ples in numbers that differed from chance using a binomial test.

Stability of SDO Measure Over Time

We measured the stability of scores on our scale over time in two samples. Twenty-five of the subjects in Sample 3 were tested on SDO twice at a 3-month interval. Their SDO scores substan- tially correlated from Time 1 to Time 2 (r = .81, p < .01). The mean difference from Time 1 to Time 2 was 0.09 on a 7-point scale, which did not differ reliably from zero {t < 1). In contrast, the Time 1-Time 2 correlation for the 10-item RSE was .50.

Sample 13 consisted of 46 of the highest and lowest scoring men on the SDO scale from Samples 3, 4, and 11, who com- pleted that scale again some months later. The correlation in this sample from Time 1 to Time 2 was .84 (p < .001), and the mean difference in scores from Time 1 to Time 2 was essentially zero (M = 0.03, t < 1; for the high group, M = -0.03 and for the low group, M = 0.09). All of the subjects first classified as "high" or "low" on SDO met this criterion again in the second testing. The near-zero mean changes within both groups are particularly telling because one could have expected at least some regression toward the mean. Thus, even in different test- ing contexts, our SDO measure appears highly stable in the short term.

Predictive Measures

Gender Differences

The gender difference we expected showed in all but two sam- ples; men were higher on SDO than women (see point-biserial correlations in Table 2).

SDO and Hierarchy Role

A question on the demographic background questionnaire asked subjects in what sector of the economy they intended to work after graduation. There were 20 career choices provided. Theoretically, we define those whose work is primarily aimed at protecting, serving, or benefiting elite members of society more than oppressed members of society "hierarchy-enhancing." Those whose work benefits the oppressed more than elites we define as "hierarchy-attenuating." As such, we classified sub- jects as (a) hierarchy enhancers (those intending careers in law, law enforcement, politics, and business); (b) "middlers" who would not obviously attenuate or enhance inequality through their professional work, such as science and sales; or (c) hierar- chy attenuators (those intending to be in such professions as social work or counseling; see also Sidanius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). We predicted that hierarchy enhancers would have higher SDO levels than hierarchy attenuators, and that middlers' SDO levels would fall somewhere between the other two. Sample 2 was large enough to test this hypothesis; we also combined Samples 5, 6, 8, and 9 to replicate the test. Be- cause more women tend to go into hierarchy-attenuating ca- reers, and because we know that SDO exhibits a gender differ- ence, we also included subject sex as an independent variable along with hierarchy role. SDO was the outcome variable in simultaneous regression-style analyses of variance (ANOVAs)

2 The freed elements of the matrix corresponded to Items 8 and 9, Items 2 and 4, and Items 10 and 11 in Apendix A.

748 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Table 2 Coefficient Alphas, Correlation With Subject Gender, and Average Item Means and Variances by Sample for 14-Item Social Dominance Orientation Scale

Measure

a

M Variance

1

.85

.29** 2.44 0.14

2

.83

.27** 2.74 0.22

3a

.84

.32** 2.55 0.18

3b

.85

.31* 2.31 0.17

4

.84

.32** 2.59 0.21

5

.81

.11 2.97 0.40

Sample

6

.84

.36* 2.50 0.24

7

.89

.28* 2.59 0.23

8

.82

.27** 3.02 0.18

9

.80

.03 3.12 0.36

10

.83

.30** 3.13 0.66

11

.81

2.91 0.27

12

.83

.26** 2.60 0.23

Note. Positive correlations with gender indicate that men were higher than women *p<.05. **p<.0l.

with planned contrasts. In Sample 2, the results were as ex- pected: Those who intended to work in hierarchy-attenuating professions had lower SDO levels (M = 2.28) than did middlers {M = 2.72), F( 1,432) = 5.49, p < .05, and also lower levels than those intending to work in hierarchy-enhancing professions (M = 2.88), F(l, 432) = 10.21, p < .01. Men also had higher SDO levels (M = 3.03) than women (M = 2.51), F( 1,432) = 36.86, p < .001. In the merged sample, hierarchy attenuators again had lower SEX) levels (M = 2.64) than hierarchy enhancers (M = 3.09), F(l, 378) = 5.01, p < .05. Middlers' SDO levels were in the middle (M = 2.94) and were not distinguishable from those of either enhancers or attenuators. Again, men (M = 3.07) had higher SDO levels than women (M = 2.90), F(\, 378) = 3.72, p = .05. Results from both these large samples indicate that in- tended hierarchy attenuators did indeed have lower SDO levels than intended hierarchy enhancers, even after controlling for subjects' sex.

SDO and Hierarchy-Legitimizing Myths

We hypothesized that SDO should be related to any social or political ideology that helps legitimize group-based inequality.

Ideologies. The three-item index of self-described political ideology had good internal reliability, averaging a = .78 across samples (see Table 3). SDO correlated positively and signifi- cantly with political-economic conservatism in 7 of 8 samples, averaging r = .38; conservatives were higher on SDO than liber- als (see Table 3). The scales measuring meritocratic ideologies, the Protestant Work Ethic and Just World Scales, had fairly low internal reliabilities in all samples, considering that they are 19- and 20-item scales, respectively (see Table 3). In a Stanford sam- ple (Sample 3b), but not in two samples from SJSU (Samples 2 and 9), the Protestant Work Ethic Scale and Just World Scale had significant positive correlations with SDO (see Table 3). This suggested to us that variations in the cultural background of these samples may affect the ideologies known to and ac- cepted by them. Results from our demographic questionnaire showed that compared with Stanford, SJSU tends to have more first-generation American, more Catholic, and fewer Euro- American students.

The other legitimizing myth scales that we constructed fared better (see items for all other scales Appendix B). The national- ism, patriotism, cultural elitism, and equal opportunity mea- sures all had good internal reliability and were positively corre- lated with SDO (rs ranged from .22 to .67), with only one ex-

ception (see Table 3). These correlations showed that the more subjects tended to prefer group dominance in general, the more nationalistic and patriotic they were (average rs = .51 and .45, respectively) and the more they subscribed to cultural elitism (average r = .40) and equal opportunity ideologies (average r = .46). As predicted, the noblesse oblige scale was strongly nega- tively correlated with SDO in every sample, ranging from -.39 to -.69 (see Table 3). In Samples 1, 3a, and 7 (not shown in Table 3), SDO correlated -.47, -.56, and -.67 with noblesse oblige (ps < .01), for an overall average correlation of-.54.

Ethnic prejudice. SDO was strongly correlated with our anti-Black racism measure in every sample, ranging from .42 to .65 and averaging .55 (see Table 3). In Sample 4, we also mea- sured anti-Arab racism (a = .73), which correlated with SDO (r = .22, p < .05). In Sample 9, we administered McConahay's (1986) seven-item Modern Racism Scale (a = .79), which cor- related .53 with SDO. Katzand Hass' (1988) 10-item Pro-Black Scale (a = .68) was negatively correlated with SDO (r = —.38, p < .01), and their 10-item Anti-Black Scale (a = .62) was posi- tively correlated with SDO (r = .30, p < .01). These results, using rather different racism measures, are consistent with the idea that generalized preference for group dominance drives be- lief in culturally specific forms of ethnic prejudice.

Sexism. We assessed antifemale sexism in Samples 5 and 6 with several measures, all of which proved to be internally reli- able. These measures were highly correlated with SDO (rs rang- ing from .34 to .63; see Table 4). Across both samples and all sexism measures, the average correlation was .47. Partial corre- lations controlling for gender with SDO were also reliable and of about the same magnitude. For this reason, the large corre- lations between SDO and sexism cannot be attributed to gender differences on SDO or sexism measures.

In summary, all of the measured ideologies (hierarchy-legiti- mizing myths) except the Protestant Work Ethic Scale and Be- lief in a Just World Scale were reliably correlated with SDO in the expected directions across virtually all samples. SDO was most strongly related with ideologies concerning group preju- dice against other nations, ethnic groups, and women.

SDO and Policy Attitudes

We hypothesized that SDO would predict support for social policies with implications for the distribution of social value among groups. We assessed attitudes toward chauvinist policies (United States dominating other national groups), law and or-

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 749

Table 3 Coefficient Alphas of Legitimizing Myth Scales and Correlations With Social Dominance Orientation Sample

No of Sample 2 Sample 3b Sample 5 Sample 6 Sample 8 Sample 9 Sample 10 Measure items (n = 408) (n = 57) Sample 4 (n = 144) (n = 49) («=115) (n = 95) (n = 156)

Coefficient a

Political-economic conservatism 3 .69 .83 .89* Protestant Work Ethic 19 .68 .75 Just World 20 .55 .42 Nationalism 6 .75 .88 .80" Patriotism 12 Cultural elitism 7 Equal opportunity 6 Noblesse oblige 6 .58 .80 .69" Anti-Black racism 5 .68 .77

.80

.68

.83

.67

.65

.68

.70

.71

.86

.89

.78

.76

.73

.74

.80

.78

.56

.60

.72

.73

.66

.80

.59

.49

.72

.77

.78

.62

.54

Political-economic conservatism Protestant Work Ethic Just World Nationalism Patriotism Cultural elitism Equal opportunity Noblesse oblige Anti-Black racism

.26** -.03

.09

.52**

- . 3 9 " .57**

Correlations

.28*

.33*

.43**

.41**

-.54** .42**

4 4 »*b

.53**"

_ 4 3 * . b

.11

.43**

.43**

.51**

.51** -.60**

.49**

.72**

.67**

.65**

.23

.51**

.61**

.24*

.51**

-.69** .65**

.17*

.03

.47**

.22*

.44**

.34** -.50**

.52**

.55**

.72**

-.72**

• n = 1 8 0 . »« = 90. *p<.05. **p<.0l.

der policies, military programs, gay rights, women's rights, so- cial programs generally, racial policies, and environmental pol- icies in most of our samples (see coefficient alphas in Table 5).

Support for chauvinist policies and law and order policies were positively correlated with SDO in almost all samples, av- eraging .34 and .28, respectively. Support for military programs was positively correlated with SDO in all samples, averaging .44. Support for gay rights, women's rights, social welfare pro- grams, ameliorative racial policy, miscegenation, and environ- mental policy were significantly negatively related to SDO in all but three cases (see Table 5). These relationships were of about the same magnitudes as the policy attitudes described above. We assessed political party preference by having subjects rate themselves from strong Democrat (1) through independent (4) to strong Republican (7) and others. Excluding "others," Repub- lican political party preference correlated positively and sig-

nificantly with SDO in six out of six samples, averaging .28 (see Table 5).

In addition to support for military programs, we expected support for military action including war to be positively related to SDO. We tested this hypothesis by surveying attitudes toward war in general and specific attitudes toward the war against Iraq fought by the United States and other nations at the time of data collection. In fall 1990, while Iraq was occupying Kuwait and the United States was amassing troops near Iraq, data from Sample 2 were collected, including a single war policy item, "Going to war to maintain low oil prices." This item correlated .30 with SDO (p < .01). In January, 1991, when the United States and allies had just begun bombing Iraq, we administered a balanced scale concerning war and related attitudes to Sample 4. A reliable (a = .85) eight-item pro-war scale correlated .51 with SDO (p < .01). One year later, we asked Sample 8 about

Table 4 Coefficient Alphas of Sexism Scales and Correlations With Social Dominance Orientation Within Samples

Measure

Rombough & Ventimiglia sexism Sex differences Internal (household) labor External (paid) labor

Sexist Attitudes Toward Women Rape Myths

No. of items

20 5

10 6

40 10

Coefficient a

Sample 5

.90

.68

.89

.78

.91

.84

Sample 6

.94

.65

.94

.85

.94

.75

Correlations

Sample 5

.44**

.38**

. 3 4 "

.45**

. 4 6 "

. 4 6 "

Sample 6

. 5 4 "

. 5 6 "

. 6 3 "

.36*

. 5 5 "

.40**

*p<.05. " / x . O l .

750 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Table 5 Coefficient Alphas of Policy Scales, Correlations With Social Dominance Orientation, and Partial Correlations Controlling for Conservatism, Across Samples

Policy scale

Chauvinism Law and order Military programs Gay & lesbian rights Women's rights Social programs Racial policy Miscegeny Environmental

policies

Chauvinism Law and order Military programs Gay & lesbian rights Women's rights Social programs Racial policy Miscegeny Environmental

policies Republican party

preference

Chauvinism Law and order Military programs Gay & lesbian rights Women's rights Social programs Racial policy Miscegeny Environmental

policies

No. of items

8 4 3 2 4

10 7 2

5

2 (« = 455)

.64

.67"

.82

.63

.78

.71

.96

3b (n = 50) 4

Coefficient a

.73 .71 .75 .91 .72 .77 .81 .97

Sample

5 (n = 129)

.59

.73

.85

.69

.79

.68

.93

.71

6 (n = 37)

.73

.IT

.67

.86

.63

.86

.72

.94

.80

Correlations of social dominance orientation and policy items

.08

.33** -.32** -.42** -.50** -.42** -.31**

.15**

.23*

.27* - . 5 0 * * - . 3 2 * * - . 3 1 * * - . 4 6 * * - . 1 5

.25*

.37**

.30**

.33** - . 2 9 * * - . 3 9 * * - . 2 9 * * - . 2 3 * * - . 3 0 * *

- . 2 7 * *

.24**

.49**

.59**

.70** - . 5 5 * * - . 3 4 * - . 7 0 * * - . 6 2 * * - . 3 1 *

- . 4 0 * *

.45**

Partial correlations removing political-economic conservatism

-.02 .16***

-.28*** -.38** -.30*** -.33*** - . 2 8 * * *

.15

.18 - . 3 2 * * - . 3 1 * * - . 2 7 * - . 3 0 * * - . 1 9

.40**

.29***

.31*** - . 2 9 * * * - . 3 5 * * * - . 3 0 * * * - . 2 2 * * * - . 3 1 * * *

- . 2 7 * * *

.16

. 3 1 *

.40** - . 1 4 - . 2 7 * - . 4 9 * * - . 3 8 * * - . 0 8

- . 3 1 *

8 (n = 100)

.67

.80°

.66C

.60c

.91

.24*

- . 5 2 * * - . 5 5 * * - . 5 4 * * - . 2 5 *

.33**

.25***

- . 4 6 * * * - . 5 0 * * * - . 4 9 * * * - . 2 3 * *

9 (n = 89)

.58

.77"

.59

.83

.74

.81"

.77

.87

.76

.14

.19

.47** - . 1 7 - . 4 2 * * - . 3 9 * * - . 3 4 * * - . 1 8

- . 4 7 * *

.27*

.06

.15

.46*** - . 1 5 - . 4 0 * * * - . 3 7 * * * - . 3 1 * * * - . 1 7 *

- . 4 6 * * *

* Three items. b Two items. c Six items. d Seven items. *p<.05. **p<.0\. ***/><.001.

their attitudes toward the Iraq war. The resulting Iraq War Atti- tudes scale was reliable (a = .85) and correlated .29 with SDO

Does SDO, then, unconditionally predict support for war, or only war for certain purposes? We attempted to answer this question by designing a General War Attitudes scale including two kinds of items, namely, Wars of Dominance, which we ex- pected to relate positively to SDO, and Wars for Humanitarian Reasons, which we did not expect to relate positively to SDO. This scale was administered to Sample 8 in January, 1992. Fac- tor analysis confirmed that these were two independent dimen- sions. The Wars of Dominance scale (eight items) was reliable (a = .82) and correlated positively with SDO (r= .31,p< .01). The Humanitarian Wars scale (six items)3 was also reliable (a = .73) and correlated negatively with SDO (r = - . 4 1 , p < .01), so

SDO is not merely antipacifism. The Wars of Dominance scale was positively correlated with support for the Iraq war (r = .63, p < .001), but the Humanitarian Wars scale was uncorrelated with support for the Iraq war (r = .07). These results suggest that SDO does not predict support for war unconditionally; rather, SDO predisposes people to endorse group dominance ideologies, thus facilitating support for wars of dominance.

Discriminant Validity

We expected SDO to correlate with political-economic con- servatism, and indeed it did. However, to show that SDO has

! Two unreliable items were eliminated from the scale.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 751

utility as a predictor of policy attitudes over and above political- economic conservatism, we computed the correlations between SDO and the policy attitudes reported above after partialing out political-economic conservatism. Of the 41 significant zero-or- der correlations between SDO and policy attitudes in Table 5, only 5 become nonsignificant when political-economic conser- vatism is partialed out.4 A few of the very high zero-order cor- relations were reduced substantially, but many more partial cor- relations were almost the same as the zero-order correlations (see Table 5). Across all the samples, then, there was no consis- tent evidence that political-economic conservatism could re- place SDO as a predictor of the policy attitudes we assessed.

In Sample 9, we assessed another rival predictor of policy at- titudes, namely authoritarianism, using two measures. Alte- meyer's 30-item RWA scale had good internal reliability {a = .78); Goertzel's measure was adequate for a bipolar scale (a = .53). Both measures of authoritarianism correlated with politi- cal-economic conservatism (r = .31 for RWA, r = .29 for the Goertzel measure, both ps < .01), confirming their validity. Neither, however, correlated strongly with SDO. RWA correlated .14 (ns) with SDO, and the Goertzel measure correlated .18 with SDO (p < . 10). Correcting these correlations for attenua- tion yielded slightly higher correlations (r* = .18, p < .05 for RWA; r* = .28, p < .01 for the Goertzel measure).

We also computed partial correlations between SDO and the policy attitudes, partialing the two authoritarianism measures and political-economic conservatism. In Sample 9, all the poli- cies that showed significant zero-order correlations with SDO also had significant correlations with SDO, partialing out the effects of political-economic conservatism, RWA, and the Goertzel measure. Both authoritarianism measures showed substantial zero-order correlations with attitudes that were not as highly correlated with SDO in this sample: gay rights (r = -.51 for RWA, r = -.31 for the Goertzel measure, ps <.01) and chauvinistic policies (r = .38 for RWA, p < .01, r = .25 for the Goertzel measure, p < .05). As Peterson, Doty, and Winter (1993) showed recently, authoritarianism still predicts social at- titudes, particularly those relevant to untraditional sexual prac- tices and prejudice against foreigners.

Because authoritarian personality theory (Adorno et al., 1950) also postulates that authoritarianism should predict eth- nocentrism, racism, nationalism, and conservatism, we tested whether SDO would still predict belief in these legitimizing myths, controlling for authoritarianism. All the reliable zero- order correlations between SDO and ideological measures were reliable after controlling for RWA and the Goertzel measure, except for the correlation with political-economic conserva- tism. The correlation between SDO and political-economic conservatism, partialing RWA, was . 13 (p = . 11). Partialing the Goertzel measure, the correlation between SDO and political- economic conservatism was .16 (p = .07), and partialing both measures, the correlation was .13 (jo = .11). Although the rela- tionship between SDO and conservatism may be explained by their joint relationship to authoritarianism, the relationships between SDO and racism and nationalism cannot.

Dominance and Self-Esteem

Conservatism and authoritarianism were the only rival vari- ables we identified as predictors of social and political attitudes,

and the analyses above show that SDO substantially related to such attitudes, even when controlling for political-economic conservatism and for authoritarianism. To show a different kind of discriminant validity, we tested whether SDO correlated with other personality measures. If any of these were large, we would then be obliged to test the partial correlations with the social and political attitudes discussed above.

Only once did SDO correlate with the CPI and JPRF Domi- nance subscales across five samples (see Table 6). On average, CPI Dominance correlated .03 with SDO, and JPRF Domi- nance correlated -.006. These results clearly indicate that SDO is independent of interpersonal dominance. In Sample 1, SDO was also unrelated to CPI Flexibility (r = .06) and Capacity for Status (r = .05). For the most part, SDO was also uncorrelated with self-esteem in Samples 1 through 9, averaging -.08 (see Table 6).

Other Personality Measures

We used data collected by other researchers at Stanford dur- ing mass testing sessions to further investigate the discriminant validity of SDO. SDO was uncorrelated with all the self-moni- toring and self-consciousness scales in Sample 11. In Samples 7, 9, 11, and 12, SDO correlated -.06, - . 1 1 , .08, and -.19, respectively, with Extraversion; none of these correlations differed reliably from zero. SDO correlated - . 0 2 , . 13, -.08, and .21 in those samples, respectively, with Neuroticism; none of these differed reliably from zero. SDO correlated -.03 with Agreeableness in Sample 7 and -.41 (p < .01) in Sample 9. SDO correlated -.04 and - . 14 with Conscientiousness in Sam- ples 7 and 9, neither of which differed reliably from zero. SDO correlated -.28 with Openness (p < .01) in Sample 9. These data do not suggest that SDO is redundant with any of the Big- Five dimensions and strongly imply that SDO is independent of Extraversion and Neuroticism. Across this set of correlations, there was also no evidence that SDO is related to the positively valued personality dimensions (e.g., Extraversion and Calm- ness) as opposed to the negative dimensions (e.g., Introversion and Neuroticism).

Convergent Validity

Empathy, Altruism, and Communality

We expected that feelings of closeness and kindness toward others should mitigate desire to dominate other groups, so em- pathy, altruism, and communality should correlate negatively with SDO. We first tested whether different varieties of empathy were negatively related to SDO using Davis' (1983) IRI. The Concern for Others subscale was significantly negatively corre- lated with SDO in every sample (rs ranged from —.40 to —.53 and averaged -.46; see Table 7). High dominance-oriented peo- ple expressed less concern for others than did low dominance- oriented people. The patterns of correlations between SDO and the other subscales were not as consistent across samples, but when they were significant, all correlations were negative (see Table 7). The total Empathy scale was negatively correlated

4 One other correlation actually became significant because partial correlations use one-tailed tests.

752 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Table 6 Coefficient Alphas of Interpersonal Dominance and Self-Esteem and Correlations With Social Dominance Orientation Within Samples

Measure

CPI Dominance JPRF Dominance Rosenberg Self-Esteem

CPI Dominance JPRF Dominance Rosenberg Self-Esteem

No. of items

35 19 10

1 (n = 98)

.82

.81

.87

-.11 - . 0 4 - . 0 9

2 (« = 403)

.79

.81

.87

- . 0 3 .13**

-.18

3a 3b (n = 80) (n = 57)

Coefficient a

.79

.74 .88 .88

Correlations

-.17 -.17

.09 .01

Sample

4 (n = 90)

.90

.16

5 (« = 144)

.87

- . 2 3 * *

6 (« = 56)

.85

-.01

8 (« = 115)

.71

.73

.84

.24**

.01 -.29**

9 (n = 95)

.71

.69

.83

.20

.04 -.14*

Note. CPI = California Psychological Inventory; JPRF = Jackson Personality Research Form. *p<.05. **p<.0l.

with SDO in 5 of 6 samples (averaging r = -.31), but not as highly as the Concern for Others subscale. We conclude that concern for others is the form of empathy that precludes the desire to dominate other groups.

As one might expect, altruism was correlated with the Con- cern for Others subscale in Samples 5 and 6 (ps < .001) and was negatively correlated with SDO (see Table 7). Communality was also negatively correlated with SDO in Samples 8 and 9 (see Table 7). In addition, Katz and Hass' (1988) 10-item Humani- tarian-Egalitarian Scale correlated negatively with SDO (a =

.80, r = — .34, p< .01) in Sample 9; this scale includes altruistic, inclusive, and egalitarian items.

The constellation of qualities including communality, emo- tional empathy, and altruism has been termed "linking" and is stereotypically associated with the female sex (e.g., Eisler & Loye, 1983). However, it is important to note that SDO's corre- lations with communality, altruism, and concern for others were significant even after controlling for sex. Thus, gender differences alone are not responsible for the correlations be- tween SDO and communality, altruism, and concern for others.

Table 7 Coefficient Alphas of Empathy, Altruism, and PAQ Subscales and Correlations With Social Dominance Orientation

Sample

Measure

Empathy Concern Distress Perspective-taking Fantasy

Altruism PAQ Communality PAQ Agency

Empathy Concern Distress Perspective-taking Fantasy

Altruism PAQ Communality PAQ Agency

No. of items

28 7 7 7 7 5

23 28

Sample 2 (n = 403)

.76

.73

.71

.64

.71

- . 4 0 * * - . 4 5 * * - . 0 3 - . 3 0 * * - . 2 3 * *

Sample 3b (n = 57)

Coefficient a

.72

.77

.70

.78

.79

Correlations

- . 2 1 - . 5 1 * * - . 1 1

.05

.01

Sample 5 (n = 144)

.77

.66

.67

.74

.70

.87

- . 2 6 * * - . 4 7 * *

.10 - . 2 0 * - . 0 6 - . 3 2 * *

Sample 6 (n = 56)

.75

.75

.74

.84

.72

.87

- . 3 6 * - . 4 1 * * - . 1 6 - . 1 6 - . 2 5 * - . 2 4 *

Sample 8 ( « = 1 1 5 )

.75

.69

.61

.71

.70

.76

.80

- . 3 8 * * - . 5 3 * *

.22** - . 3 9 * * - . 2 1 *

- . 4 2 * * —.10

Sample 9 (n = 95)

.73

.68

.52

.58

.64

.78

.80

- . 2 4 * - . 4 0 * *

.21* - . 1 5 - . 2 3 *

- . 2 4 * no

— .(Jo

Note. PAQ = Persona) A t t r i b u t e s Q u e s t i o n n a i r e . *p<.05. **p<.0l.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 753

Lest high levels of dominance orientation be confused with agency, it is important to emphasize that there was no correla- tion between SDO and the PAQ Agency scale in Samples 8 and 9 (see Table 7).

Tolerance

SDO was negatively related to the JPI Tolerance subscale (rs = -.27, -.36, and -.27, all ps < .01 in Samples 1, 8, and 9, respectively), despite the low reliabilities of the Tolerance sub- scale, which has a true-false response format (.53,5.59, and. 18, respectively). When corrected for attenuation, the correlations were -.40, -.52, and - . 7 1 , respectively (ps < .001), but these may be considered "overcorrected" because of the low reliabil- ity coefficients of the Tolerance scale. The average correlation between SDO and Tolerance was —.30.

SDO as an Orientation: Predicting New Attitudes

According to social dominance theory, one of SDO's most significant functions is orienting people toward or away from new social attitudes. Therefore, we tested whether SDO pre- dicted beliefs in new legitimizing myths and support for new policies. Unfolding public events provided three opportunities to test attitudes toward "new" policies, some of which had rather novel legitimizations provided for them.

Iraq War

War making is an extreme act of discrimination against an out-group; enemy out-group members are routinely starved, raped, killed, maimed, or made ill during war. Given that, we expect that arguments given in support of war would serve as legitimizing myths and thus should relate to SDO. We tested this hypothesis looking at U.S. policy in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Pundits seemed to feel the White House gave several different reasons for U.S. policy at the time, so this was an opportune occasion to examine the opera- tion of new legitimizing myths. National random-sample opin- ion polls showed significant fluidity of attitudes about appropri- ate policy up until the United States began bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991. For example, the Los Angeles Times poll showed that merely 38% of the public favored going to war against Iraq on November 14, 1990, but that once U.S. troops had begun bombing, 81 % of the public on January 17-18,1991, and on February 15-17, 1991, approved of the war. Even just before and after the bombing began, there were dramatic shifts in opinion; from January 8-12, 1991, 39% felt that economic sanctions against Iraq should be used without resorting to war, but on January 17-18, 1991, 72% of the public believed Presi- dent Bush had given enough time for economic sanctions to work. The outcome of the present study was, then, by no means certain.

During the third week of January, 1991, subjects in Sample 4 completed an Iraq War Attitudes survey. We asked subjects how willing they would be to make sacrifices for war (as opposed to making sacrifices to prevent wars), whether they favored sus- pending certain civil liberties and invoking the draft during war, and whether they favored military action against Iraq. We also measured a new "legitimizing myth," namely, that Iraq should

be stopped because of the environmental damage that it was inflicting on the Gulf. This idea was brought up because the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had threatened to burn all of Ku- wait's oil iflraq was bombed, and the recent 20th anniversary of Earth Day had put environmental concerns on the public's mind. SDO was positively and significantly correlated with each of these attitude dimensions (see Table 8). Higher SDO levels were associated with favoring military action against Iraq, fa- voring suspension of civil liberties for the war, a willingness to make sacrifices for the war effort, and a nationalistic view of environmental problems associated with the war.

Clarence Thomas' Nomination to the Supreme Court

Political appointments can also be considered policies that have implications for intergroup relations, and also can be legit- imized; therefore, their relationship to SDO is of theoretical concern. The second new attitude that we assessed was support for Clarence Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court. This appointment was related to a number of long-standing legiti- mizing myths, including conservatism, meritocracy, racism, and sexism, shown above to relate to SDO. Thomas, widely con- sidered a Black conservative, was nominated to replace Thur- good Marshall, a Black former civil rights lawyer, who an- nounced his intention to retire. President Bush nominated Thomas to the Supreme Court in the spring of 1991, and the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on this nomination in the spring and fall. Just before the vote to confirm Thomas was scheduled, a news story broke that two of Thomas' former subordinates had accused him of sexual harassment. One of these persons, Anita Hill, was called to testify before the Judi- ciary Committee, and the proceedings received much publicity including gavel-to-gavel television and radio coverage. After an entire weekend of testimony solely about the sexual harassment charge, the Judiciary Committee voted to confirm Thomas on October 15, 1991.6

We telephoned 149 of the 173 (86%) subjects in Sample 7 (who had completed the SDO scale in late September) on that day or on the following 2 days and asked them four attitudinal questions about Thomas and Hill. They responded to state- ments on 7-point scales where 1 meant strongly disagree and 7 meant strongly agree. The statements were (a) "after Thurgood Marshall's retirement from the Supreme Court, it was good that George Bush appointed a Black person to the Court," (b) "after Thurgood Marshall's retirement from the Supreme Court, it was good that George Bush appointed a conservative to the Court," (c) "If I were in the Senate, I would have voted in favor of Clarence Thomas' confirmation to the Supreme Court," and (d) "Anita Hill was telling the truth in claiming that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her." We found that SDO signifi- cantly predicted opposition to nominating a Black to the Su- preme Court, support for nominating a conservative to the court, support for Clarence Thomas, and disbelief of Anita Hill's testimony (see correlations in Table 8).

5 By accident, only the 10 false-coded items in the scale were admin- istered to Sample 1.

6 Because of the time delay between Washington, DC, and California, Californians heard this news as they awoke.

754 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Table 8 Coefficient Alphas and Correlations of Social Dominance Orientation With New Attitudes

Scale or item

Favors military action by U.S. Willing to make sacrifices for war Favors suspending liberties for war Concerned about environment in war

Favors appointing a Black person Favors appointing a conservative Favored Clarence Thomas' confirmation Believed Anita Hill's testimony

Specific deterrence Favored executing Harris Painful executions Belief in retribution

No. of items

Sample 4

5 4 4 4

Sample 7

Sample 10

3 2 8 5

Coefficient a

.78

.56

.51

.57

.70

.96

.86

.74

Correlation with social dominance

orientation

.48**

.45**

.45**

.28**

-.20* .32*** .22**

-.26***

.35**

.36**

.42**

.51**

" p < . 0 5 . * * p < . 0 1 . "/x.001.

Death Penalty

Elsewhere, we have argued that SDO should also be related to support of legal institutions that are discriminatory or in- egalitarian in their effects (Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius, Liu, Pratto, & Shaw, 1994). Mitchell (1993) showed that SDO is re- lated to ideologies that legitimize the use of the death penalty, such as the belief in legal retribution or the belief that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on crime. We assessed SDO in March, 1992, in Sample 10; 2 weeks later, we administered an extensive survey about death penalty ideologies and about the execution of Robert Alton Harris, who was executed by the state of California the day before the subjects were surveyed. Belief that executions have a specific deterrent effect, support for Harris' execution, support of painful executions, and belief in retribution were positively correlated with SDO (see Table 8).

Summary

To provide a summary of the correlations with SDO, we used Fisher's z-to-r formula to average the correlations across sam- ples (e.g., Rosenthal, 1986, p. 27). To test the average statistical significance of the correlation coefficients, we computed stan- dard normal (Z) scores corresponding to each correlation co- efficient using the large-sample formula Z= rX (N)*. The total of the Z scores across samples divided by the square root of the number of samples can be compared with the standard normal distribution to test the null hypothesis that the pattern of corre- lations obtained over samples occurred because of chance asso- ciations between SDO and the variable in question.7

On average, subject sex correlated .26 with SDO (Z = 9.92, p < .001). Thus, the data were consistent with our prediction that men will be higher on SDO than women.

In terms of discriminant validity, over five samples, the aver-

age correlation between SDO and CPI Dominance was .03 and the average correlation between SDO and JPRF Dominance was —.01. Over nine samples, the average correlation between SDO and RSE was -.08. Averaged over four samples, SDO cor- related —.03 with Extraversion and .10 with Neuroticism. Clearly SDO is independent of all of these constructs. As ex- pected, SDO had moderate negative correlations with concern for others, communality, tolerance, and altruism (see average correlations in Table 9). The averaged correlations were clearly different from zero, but they were not high enough that they indicate redundancy between these measures and SDO either, given that they ranged from —.28 for altruism to —.46 for con- cern for others.

SDO strongly and consistently related to belief in a number of hierarchy-legitimizing myths, most strongly to anti-Black racism and nationalism. SDO also was strongly negatively re- lated to a hierarchy-attenuating ideology, noblesse oblige. SDO correlated consistently positively with beliefs in sexism, equal opportunities, patriotism, cultural elitism, conservatism, and a Just World. The Protestant Work Ethic was the only legitimiz- ing ideology that we did not find to relate to SDO reliably over samples (see Table 9).

Finally, SDO showed strong consistent correlations with scales assessing opposition to social programs, racial policies, and women's rights, and with support for military programs. SDO was also consistently correlated with opposition to gay and lesbian rights, environmental programs, and miscegeny and was consistently correlated with support for U.S. chauvinism, law-and-order policies, and Republican party identification (see Table 9). SDO also predicted attitudes toward new political

7 A Z statistic with smaller variance could also have been computed by using the sample variance to weight the Z from each sample, which would cause all the p values given below to be smaller.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 755

Table 9 Average Correlations and Significance Tests Across Samples Between Social Dominance Orientation and Personality Variables, Ideologies, and Policy Attitudes

Measure Meanr

Personality variables

Concern for others Communality Tolerance Altruism

Anti-Black racism Noblesse oblige Nationalism Sexism Equal opportunities Patriotism Cultural elitism

-.46 -.33 -.30 -.28

Ideologies

.55 -.57

.54

.47

.46

.45

.40 Political-economic conservatism .38 Just World Protestant Work Ethic

Social programs Racial policy Women's rights Military programs Gay & lesbian rights Environmental program! Chauvinism Miscegeny

.27

.11

Policy attitudes

-.47 -.44 -.40

.44 -.37

s -.38 .34

-.25 Republican party preference .28 Law and order .28

n

6 2 3 2

6 10 8

12 3 3 3 8 2 3

6 6 6 5 5 3 3 6 6 6

Z

-8.92 -4.84 -5.31 -3.98

15.05 20.30 15.96 14.91 7.51 6.84 6.94

10.26 3.58 1.25

-12.74 -11.74 -11.52 -10.12 -8.79 -6.16

5.34 -7.36

7.08 6.38

Note. All Zs were significant at p < .0001 except for Just World (j> = .0002) and Protestant Work Ethic {p = . 10). The mean r was computed using Fisher's z; n denotes number of samples.

events, including the 1991 war against Iraq, Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice, and a state execution. Those aspir- ing to hierarchy-enhancing careers had higher SDO scores than those aspiring to hierarchy-attenuating careers. Thus, we have provided substantial evidence that SDO (a) can be measured reliably, (b) is stable over time, (c) is higher among men than among women, (d) is higher among those who support hierar- chy-enhancing ideologies and is lower among those who support hierarchy-attenuating ideologies, (e) is higher among those who support hierarchy-enhancing policies and lower among those who support hierarchy-attenuating policies, (f) is higher among those who choose hierarchy-enhancing social roles and lower among those who choose hierarchy-attenuating social roles, and (g) serves to orient new social and political attitudes.

DISCUSSION

On the basis of social dominance theory, we postulated that there is an important individual difference in general preference for group domination, which we call social dominance orienta- tion. As its definition and name implies, SDO may best be con- sidered a general social-attitudinal orientation or implicit value relevant to intergroup relations. Some of our data inform us

that there may be a significant relationship between one's ori- entation toward other persons in general and one's orientation toward other groups. People who are highly empathic (specifi- cally, concerned with others' well-being) and to a lesser extent, those who feel interdependent or communal with others, tend to prefer egalitarian relationships among groups. Given that SDO predisposes people to believe in legitimizing myths and dis- criminatory policies, this would seem to make them less likely to believe in ideologies that relegate certain persons to "infe- rior" categories and to policies that disadvantage certain groups systematically. The recent work being done on interdependence (e.g., Depret & Fiske, 1993; Markus & Kitayama, 1991) may end up being quite informative about how to mitigate in- tergroup discrimination.

We might note that we came to postulate the existence of SDO not by thinking about "personality" in the traditional, in- dividualistic sense, but by thinking about how group-based hu- man social life is and the considerable data generated by re- searchers of political attitudes. We consider individual differ- ences on SDO to be important not for showing the uniqueness of each person, nor for enabling us to classify persons into tax- onomies. Rather, our finding of individual variation on SDO is central to our postulation of a dynamic model of human op- pression in which different kinds of people (e.g., with high or low SDO) play different roles (e.g., enhance or attenuate in- equality) and have different effects on each other (e.g., in how much they discriminate in the allocation of resources).

Despite significant variations in the degree of oppression from one society to another, it seems to us that many societies share the basic social-psychological elements that contribute to inequality: socially shared myths that define "superior group" and "inferior group" and that attempt to justify this distinction and the policies that "should" follow from it. As such, we pos- tulate that individual variation on SDO could be reliably mea- sured in many other societies and would show the same pattern of relationships to ideologies, policy attitudes, and hierarchy role as those shown here. Some of our previous research showed that group-dominance orientation significantly correlated with support for military programs, capitalism (Sidanius & Pratto, 1993b), racism, and sexism (Sidanius, Devereux, & Pratto, 1992; Sidanius & Pratto, 1993a) in Sweden, a much more egal- itarian country than the United States, and showed the same gender difference in Australia, Sweden, Russia, and the United States (see Sidanius, Pratto, & Brief, 1993). In the future, we hope to examine whether SDO relates to rather different kinds of legitimizing myths that exist in very different cultural contexts, such as anti-Semitism in Poland, xenophobia in Ja- pan, or fatalism in China.

Another kind of research endeavor that could further show the dynamic link between SDO and societal oppression would use SDO to predict attitudes toward new ideologies or policies. We expect that even when societies undergo substantial change, as with mass migration, technological innovation, or dramatic changes in borders or political leadership, such changes will be accepted only to the extent that they are satisfactorily legiti- mized and meet the public's level of desire for social dominance. Hence, the operation of SDO in the invention of new legitimi- zations and processes that assort persons into hierarchy roles may inform studies of political and social change.

756 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

SDO and Social Class

Several political psychologists and sociologists have postu- lated or investigated the relationship between social class and conservatism, racism, or authoritarianism, with Lipset (1960) postulating that the working class is more authoritarian, and Stacey and Green (1968, 1971) and many others presenting ev- idence to the contrary. We have made no predictions concerning whether SDO should be correlated with social class in either direction; instead we suspect that SDO's relationship to these variables may vary as a function of hierarchy-group member- ship, which in some societies would be designated by class and in others by racial group, caste, and so forth. We tested for cor- relations between SDO and class in the present samples, and we found no statistically significant relationships between SDO and respondents' social class or family income category. Al- though there was substantial heterogeneity in these samples on these variables for the respondents' families of origin, the edu- cation level in these samples is clearly restricted. In contrast, in a random survey of the Los Angeles area, Sidanius et al. (in press) found statistically significant and monotonic decreases in scores from an abbreviated SDO scale with increasing family income level and increasing respondent's education level. With the data now in hand, we cannot say whether social classes differ on SDO.

Authoritarianism Reconsidered

In the sample in which we assessed SDO and authoritarian- ism, the correlations between two measures of authoritarianism and SDO were weak. However, because SDO predicts many of the social attitudes conceptually associated with authoritarian- ism (e.g., ethnocentrism, punitiveness, and conservatism), a more thorough comparison of these constructs is warranted. To begin with, there is little theoretical consensus on the construct of authoritarianism. The original and some contemporary re- searchers have described authoritarianism as a multifaceted construct; for example, Heaven (1985) suggested that authori- tarianism is part achievement motivation, part dominance, part conventionalism, part militarism, part punitiveness, and part ethnocentrism. Although we think that the tendency for these constructs to covary is extremely important, calling this com- pendium authoritarianism is conceptually unsatisfying. It is neither a clear definition of a unitary construct nor a theory of why the separate constructs covary. In our view, punitiveness, ethnocentrism, conservatism, and sometimes conventionalism can function as legitimizing myths. Because legitimizing myths tend to be correlated with SDO, they are often spuriously cor- related with one another. Thus, it is entirely possible that SDO underlies these correlations. By separately defining the presum- ably causative value orientation (SDO) and ideological stances (legitimizing myths and policy attitudes) and using distinct measures of the constructs, we have avoided the conceptual problem of describing an individual tendency as a set of corre- lations (see also Duckitt, 1989).

Other definitions of authoritarianism have avoided the com- pendium problem by radically restricting the meaning of the term. Ray (1976) postulated that part of authoritarianism is leadership desire or directiveness. That SDO did not signifi- cantly correlate with two robust measures of interpersonal

dominance or with CPI Capacity for Status or PAQ Agency sug- gests that SDO cannot be interpreted as leadership desire. On this dimension, SDO and authoritarianism are distinct.

There is a new view of authoritarianism that we see as com- plementary to SDO, namely, Duckitt's (1989) description of authoritarianism as the desire for individuals to submit to au- thority figures within the in-group. The three classical dimen- sions of authoritarianism that covary empirically—submitting to in-group conventions, submitting to in-group authorities, and desiring to punish members who do not submit to in-group norms and authorities (Altemeyer, 1981)—all concern the rela- tion of the individual to the group. Thus, in Duckitt's view, au- thoritarianism is primarily an intragroup phenomenon con- cerning individuals' or groups' attitudes about what the rela- tionship between individuals and their in-groups should be. By comparison, SDO concerns individuals' attitudes about what kind of relationship should exist between in-groups and out- groups, which is an intergroup phenomenon.

SDO Versus Political-Economic Conservatism

The other well-known individual predictor of social and po- litical attitudes is political-economic conservatism. The power of political-economic conservatism to predict social and politi- cal attitudes and candidate preference is far too robust to refute. In fact, we postulate that political-economic conservatism is a prototypic legitimizing myth: an ideology that separates people into groups and suggests that some groups should be accorded more positive social value (e.g., tax breaks, funds for schools, and access to health care), whereas other groups should be allo- cated more negative social value (e.g., prison terms, censorship, and layoffs).

Our analysis of conservatism as a legitimizing myth can ex- plain why, in many previous studies, conservatism was corre- lated with racism (e.g., Dator, 1969; Levinson, 1950; Sidanius &Ekehammar, 1979; Stone &Russ, 1976). We believe political- economic conservatism and racism are spuriously correlated and that both are "driven" by SDO. In fact, recent studies have shown that there was no significant residual correlation be- tween political-economic conservatism and racism once SDO was controlled (see Sidanius & Pratto, 1993a, 1993b; Sidanius etal., 1992).

We believe SDO has significant power to predict policy atti- tudes over and above political-economic conservatism. In the present study, virtually all partial correlations between policy attitudes and SDO, controlling for political-economic conserva- tism, were reliable. Part of the advantage SDO may have over political-economic conservatism is that SDO is an attitudinal orientation rather than a policy doctrine and therefore does not require expertise or deliberate application. That is, to formulate a policy attitude consistent with one's political ideology, one must have a thorough understanding of that ideology and think through or know how it "should" apply to the acceptance of new policy initiatives. In contrast, one's SDO level will provide a gut reaction to new policy initiatives that imply changes in intergroup relations, essentially "I like it" or "I don't like it." In other words, we expect SDO to be a better predictor of group- relevant social and political attitudes than political-economic conservatism among nonideologues, whenever thoughtful ideo- logical reasoning is not engaged, and for new social attitudes.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 757

The present results can be compared with Wilson's (e.g., 1973) extensive work on conservatism as an attitudinal orienta- tion, rather than as an ideology. Wilson found that conservatism was a convenient label for describing the dimension underlying a similar constellation of ideological beliefs and policy attitudes to those we have shown to relate to SDO: racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, militarism, law and order, and proestablish- ment politics. Conceptually, our definition of SDO differs from Wilson's conservatism in that we have not included fundamen- talist religiosity, antihedonism, or strict morality as part of SDO. Our supposition is that those beliefs are particularly West- ern legitimizing myths that happen to be held by people who make distinctions between superior and inferior or deserving and undeserving people in a Calvinist vein, but that they would not necessarily be related to SDO in all cultural contexts. Like- wise, it seems that forms of ethnic prejudice other than anti- Black racism would be more powerfully related to SDO in cer- tain other cultural contexts. The comparison between SDO and attitudinal conservatism highlights that our measure of SDO is relatively independent of particular cultural beliefs or policies. That is, our items do not specify which groups of people are referred to (with the exception of nations) because we felt that a general orientation toward groups could predict attitudes to- ward specific groups or specific group-relevant policies.

We modified our SDO scale so that it related to our concep- tual definition more strongly by making each item refer only to the generic concept group. We compared the 14-item scale in Appendix A with this new scale in a sample of 199 Stanford students. We administered the 14-item SDO scale (a = .88) and a brief policy attitude survey with a 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive) response format. Four weeks later, we administered the balanced 16-item SDO scale shown in Appendix C (a = .91). The two scales correlated .75 with one another (p < .01), com- parable with the cross-time reliability correlation of the 14-item SDO scale. Both SDO scales correlated significantly with the policy attitudes in the directions expected and to very similar degrees. The 14- and 16-item SDO scales correlated, respec- tively, with attitudes toward affirmative action (rs = -.34, -.44), civil rights (-.51, -.59), gay rights (-.36, -.32), the military (.40, .39), decreased immigration (.37, .41), equal pay for women (-.38, -.29), and the death penalty (.40, .34), all p% < .01. We also tested an abbreviated scale consisting of Items 1,3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, and 14 in Appendix C (a = .86), which corre- lated in nearly the same magnitudes with the policy items above. We administered the 16-item SDO scale to another sam- ple of 245 Stanford students along with the Rombough and Ven- timiglia (1981) sexism scale. In this second sample, the 16-item scale was internally reliable (a = .91) and correlated .51 (p < .01) with the sexism scale and .26 with subject sex (p < .01). The abbreviated (8-item) version of this scale was internally re- liable (a = .86) and correlated .47 with sexism (p < .01) and .26 with subject sex (p < .01). The 16-item scale (and its 8-item abbreviated form) has slightly more face validity than the 14- item SDO scale, and it seems to have similar properties.

SDO and the Dynamics of Oppression

Our present focus on SDO is not meant to imply that all phe- nomena related to prejudice and group conflict can be solely understood or reduced to individual differences. In fact, social

dominance theory implies that SDO and other individual vari- ables must be considered within their social context, because individual variables and social-structural variables have a dy- namic relationship.

For example, our data suggest that empathy with other per- sons may be a significant attenuator of SDO. However, concern for others (particularly out-group members) is not just a fixed individual propensity, but instead seems likely to be influenced by social structures and policies. Social structures and policies that prevent the formation of close relationships and empathy between high- and low-status persons (e.g., economically or le- gally enforced segregation, language barriers, publishing bi- ases), would seem to discourage empathy .between groups and the formation of a common identity. These factors, along with the desire for group-based status and the presumption of status or privilege, may also give rise to SDO. An important enterprise for future research is to investigate the social contextual factors that contribute to SDO and to inequality in general.

As a causal variable, we believe SDO is pertinent to the dy- namics of group conflict and institutional discrimination. In the remainder of our discussion, we focus on these ramifications.

SDO and Group Discrimination

Social dominance theory states that SDO should predict prej- udice and discrimination against out-groups; social identity theory (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1986) implies that emotional affiliation or identification with one's in-group should do the same. Social identity theory posits out-group denigration as a device for maintaining positive social identity; social domi- nance theory posits it as a device to maintain superior group status. In a minimal groups experiment, SDO and in-group identification each predicted degree of out-group discrimina- tion (Sidanius, Pratto, & Mitchell, 1994). However, these effects were not independent—those who were high on SDO and on in-group identification were even more discriminatory against a minimal out-group. Crocker and Luhtanen (1990) found a parallel interaction in another experiment: People who strongly affiliated with their in-groups and whose group status was threatened especially denigrated out-groups. We consider their results to be consistent with both theories in that both group identification and group status needs motivated greater dis- crimination. Levin and Sidanius (1993) found a similar interac- tion between SDO and group status; high-SDO subjects who belonged to artificially high-status groups especially denigrated out-group members. High group status and group-status threat may work similarly in these studies because high-status groups, having the most status to lose, may experience the most threat when confronted by possible loss of status. Understanding the circumstances under which people have high levels of in-group identification, high group status, and high SDO, then, appears to be important for understanding when discrimination is likely to be especially severe. Some of our other research has ad- dressed the question of when these three predictors of discrimi- nation will co-occur.

Because SDO is the desire for one's group to dominate others, SDO should have a differential relationship to in-group identi- fication depending on the group's level of social status. Sidanius, Pratto, and Rabinowitz (1994) documented that SDO and in-

758 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

group identification were more positively correlated in higher status than in lower status groups. Using various ethnic identi- fication measures, we showed that the covariance between eth- nic identification and SDO was statistically significant and pos- itive within a high-status group (i.e., Euro-Americans), whereas this relationship was statistically significant and negative within a low-status group (Hispanics and African-Americans).

These experimental and correlational findings suggest that high-status groups will be the most discriminatory against out- groups because their members are most likely to have both high SDO levels and high levels of in-group identification. It is im- portant to remember that these two variables, in experimental studies, interact to ca.use extremely severe out-group discrimi- nation. In total, these results support social dominance theory's contention that higher status groups will tend to be more in- group serving than lower status groups. That is, higher status groups are more discriminatory against out-groups than lower status groups, and the aggregate affect of this asymmetry is not equal groups in conflict, but the maintenance of hierarchical group relations (see Sidanius & Pratto, 1993a).

SDO and Social Role

By performing organizational roles, individuals greatly ex- pand their capacity for group discrimination because collective institutions can often allocate resources or costs on a far larger scale than individuals can. Therefore, institutional discrimina- tion is one of the major contributors to the creation and main- tenance of social inequalities and social hierarchy (e.g., Feagin & Feagin, 1978). The individual organizational member, how- ever, is not insignificant. An organization's members help an institution perform its hierarchy role by endorsing legitimizing myths and adapting their SDO levels to the institution's norms. Several processes may contribute to a match between individu- als and institutions. There is mounting evidence that people seek roles in an institution compatible with their SDO levels and ideological beliefs. The present research showed two repli- cations of this relationship between SDO and aspired hierarchy role. A previous study showed the same relationship between aspired hierarchy role and belief in legitimizing myths (Sida- nius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). In another study, po- lice recruits were found to have significantly higher SDO levels and related attitudes than public defenders (Sidanius, Liu, Pratto, & Shaw, 1994). Self-selection into roles based on hierar- chy-relevant ideologies may be a contributing factor to institu- tional discrimination.

An institution also reinforces and contributes to the match between individuals' attitudes and institutional hierarchy role. For example, White police academy recruits became increas- ingly more negative toward Blacks during their first 18 months as police (Teahan, 1975). Also, the initial racial attitudes of in- tended hierarchy enhancers resisted the usual liberalizing in- fluence of college the longer they stayed in college (Sidanius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). Any number of socializa- tion or social influence processes may have caused such effects. Hierarchy-enhancing behaviors or attitudes may even be re- warded by hierarchy-enhancing institutions. One study of cam- pus police officers showed that those who were most successful in their careers, as evidenced by several measures such as supe- rior's evaluations and salary increases, tended to score higher

on measures of racism and ethnocentrism (Leitner & Sedlacek, 1976). More recently, in a study of the Los Angeles Police De- partment, the Christopher Commission (1991) found that those police officers with the highest number of civilian complaints for brutality and excessive force received unusually positive per- formance evaluations from their supervising officers. In addi- tion, these supervisor evaluations "were uniformly optimistic about the officers' progress and prospects on the force" (Chris- topher etal., 1991, p. 41).

Apparently, individuals and institutions reinforce each oth- er's hierarchy-enhancing tendencies, which we believe makes their discriminatory behaviors powerful and difficult to change. More research on the detailed processes by which individuals and institutions reinforce one another's prejudices may be use- ful to those seeking to reduce institutional discrimination.

To summarize, the present research indicates that SDO, the desire for group dominance, is a significant predictor of social and political attitudes pertaining to intergroup relations and also of hierarchy roles. Social dominance theory suggests that the confluence of this individual-difference variable and a num- ber of social factors including lack of common identity, high in- group status, and social role, contributes to the oppression of social groups.

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Appendix A

Items on the Social Dominance Orientation Scale

1. Some groups of people are simply not the equals of others. 2. Some people are just more worthy than others. 3. This country would be better off if we cared less about how equal

all people were. 4. Some people are just more deserving than others. 5. It is not a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than

others. 6. Some people are just inferior to others. 7. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on others. 8. Increased economic equality. 9. Increased social equality.

10. Equality. 11. If people were treated more equally we would have fewer problems

in this country. 12. In an ideal world, all nations would be equal. 13. We should try to treat one another as equals as much as possible.

(All humans should be treated equally.) 14. It is important that we treat other countries as equals.

All items were measured on a very negative (1) to very positive (7) scale. Items 8-14 were reverse-coded. The version of Item 13 in paren- theses was used in Samples 5-12. The order of items differed from above and across samples.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION

Appendix B

Items Used on Scales

761

Samples 2, 3b, 4, 5,6, 8, 9: Items Comprising the Original Legitimizing Myths Scales

Anti-Black Racism Scale

A Black president." Racial integration." White superiority. Blacks are inherently inferior. Civil rights activists."

Anti-Arab Racism Scale

Most of the terrorists in the world today are Arabs. Historically, Arabs have made important contributions to world

culture." Iraqis have little appreciation for democratic values. People of the Muslim religion tend to be fanatical. Muslims value peace and love."

Cultural Elitism Scale

The poor cannot appreciate fine art and music. No amount of education can make up for the wrong breeding. Qualifications and not personality should determine whether a can-

didate gets votes. The ideal world is run by those who are most capable. Western civilization has brought more progress than all other cultural

traditions. Someone who treats other people poorly but is very good at his job

should be promoted. Great art is not meant for the common folk.

Equal Opportunity Scale

In America, every person has an equal chance to rise up and prosper. Lower wages for women and ethnic minorities simply reflect lower

skill and education levels. America is the "land of opportunity." Salaries are usually reflective of education, which in turn is reflective

of intelligence and ambition. Affirmative Action prevents the more-qualified from attaining

positions. Potential to do well should not be sufficient for admission to any pro-

gram. Only those with proven competence in that field should be allowed.

Patriotism Scale

Flag burning should be illegal. In American public schools, every day should begin with the Pledge

of Allegiance. I supported the United States' actions in Iraq. Patriotism is the most important qualification for a politician. I believe in mandatory military service by all citizens of the United

States in the armed forces. It was disloyal for people to question the President during the Iraq

war. With few exceptions, the American government does a good and

honest job.

Other countries should be happy to have American intervention and influence.

I am proud to be an American. Congressman who voted against the war should be removed from

office. The United States suffers when patriotism wanes. Patriots are the ones who have made this country great.

Nationalism Scale

In view of America's moral and material superiority, it is only right that we should have the biggest say in deciding United Nations policy.

This country must continue to lead the "Free World." We should do anything necessary to increase the power of our coun-

try, even if it means war. Sometimes it is necessary for our country to make war on other coun-

tries for their own good. The important thing for the U.S. foreign aid program is to see to it

that the U.S. gains a political advantage. Generally, the more influence America has on other nations, the bet-

ter ofF they are.

Noblesse Oblige Scale—Form A

As a country's wealth increases, more of its resources should be chan- neled to the poor.

The more money one makes, the greater proportion of that money should be paid in taxes.

Those with more resources have more obligations toward their fellow human beings.

Giving to others usually benefits the givers as well. The man with two coats in his closet should give one away. Extra food on the table belongs to those who are hungry.

Noblesse Oblige Scale—Form B

As a country's wealth increases, more of its resources should be chan- neled to the poor.

Giving to others usually benefits the givers as well. Those with more resources have more obligations toward their fellow

human beings. It is beneficial to all to spend money on the public sector such as

education, housing, and health care. Those who are well off can't be expected to take care of everyone else." Social charities just create dependency."

Samples 2, 3b, 5,6, 8, 9: Items on the Policy Scales

Law and Order Policies

Death penalty for drug kingpins. Death penalty. Prisoner's rights.*-"0

Longer prison sentences.11

Gay Rights

Gay or lesbian marriage. Gay and lesbian rights.

(Appendixes continue on next page)

762 PRATTO, SIDANIUS, STALLWORTH, AND MALLE

Women's Rights

Guaranteed job security after maternity leave. Stiffer penalties for wife beating.0

Equal pay for women. More women judges.

Social Programs

Government sponsored health care. Better support for the homeless. More support for early education.04

Free school lunches.c'd

Low income housing.04

Arresting the homeless."-0

Guaranteed jobs for all. Reduced benefits for the unemployed.8

Greater aid to poor kids. Increased taxation of the rich.

Racial Policy

Racial quotas. Affirmative action. School busing.0

Civil rights. Helping minorities get a better education. Government helping minorities get better housing. Government has no business helping any particular ethnic group in

the job market."

Military Programs

Decreased defense spending." Strategic Defense Initiative. B-2 (Stealth) bomber. Going to war.e

Environmental Policies

Drilling for oil off the California coast." Government-mandated recycling programs. Taxing environmental polluters to pay for superfund clean ups. More government involvement on clean air and water. Drilling for oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

Chauvinism Scale

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). English as the official language. Decreased immigration to the U.S. National security. American way of life. No welfare for new immigrants. America first. America as world's policeman.

Sample 4: Iraq War Scales (January, 1991)

Favors Military Action by U.S.

The U.S. really had no choice but to use military force against Iraq. The U.S. should not be using military force against Iraq." Saddam Hussein must be stopped by any means necessary—includ-

ing nuclear weapons.

The U.N. coalition should not participate in any military action that will kill civilians no matter how few."

The U.N. coalition should cease bombing Iraq and offer to negotiate."

Willing to Make Sacrifices for War

It would be worth our country's having a lower standard of living to maintain world peace."

I would be willing to pay double the current prices of gasoline to avoid similar conflicts over oil in the future."

I am willing to risk my life to help with the war effort in the Persian Gulf.

I'd be willing to pay higher taxes to finance the war in the Gulf.

Favors Suspending Liberties for War

President Bush should be given whatever power he needs to conduct war.

Sometimes political leaders must be unencumbered by legislatures so that they can govern effectively.

It is appropriate to reinstitute the military draft to help with the con- flict with Iraq.

Military censorship of the press is appropriate in times of war.

Concerned About Environment in War

Iraq should be held entirely responsible for cleaning up the oil spills in the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. is partly to blame for the environmental damage to the Per- sian Gulf region."

Potential environmental damage should have been considered in the decision to go to war."

Sample 8: Post-War Pro-Iraq War Items (February, 1992)

The U.S. had no choice but to begin bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991.

The U.S. should have tried political and economic pressure for a longer time before bombing Iraq."

Bombing the cities of Iraq was justified. The President went to war to increase his popularity." The U.S. could have prevented more civilian casualties in Iraq." The Gulf War wasn't worth the human cost." The U.N. Coalition really taught Hussein a lesson. We should spend as much money and effort on solving domestic prob-

lems as we did on the Iraq war." Once there was 250,000 U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region, it

would have been embarrassing not to "use" them in war. President Bush should not have set a date for Iraqi withdrawal from

Kuwait." Strict control of the press coverage of the Iraq war was necessary. If we understood the Iraqis better, we might have been able to avoid

the war." In all, the press reports we received about the war were fair and

impartial. The military response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait will probably dis-

courage others from invading countries. The Gulf War wasn't worth the environmental cost."

Wars of Dominance

To insure our influence is felt in that nation. To protect our economic interests. To protect our citizens being held hostage. For U.S. national security purposes.

SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION 763

To restore a freely elected government which had been overthrown by a military coup.

To keep an enemy from acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons. If we started disarming, it would only lead to more war. A U.S. Military presence helps maintain peace.

Humanitarian Wars

To ensure that human rights were respected in that country. To ensure that emergency food supplies could reach civilians. To protect unarmed civilians from battles. Ultimatums usually lead to war, rather than diplomatic solutions. By selling arms to other countries, we increase the likelihood of war. War should always be considered a last resort.

Sample 10: Items on Death Penalty Survey

Favored Executing Harris

I felt that Robert Alton Harris' death sentence should have been com- muted to life in prison without possibility of parole.3

I felt that Robert Alton Harris should have been executed.

Believes in Specific Deterrence

If not executed, murderers will commit more crimes in the future. We don't need the death penalty to insure that a murderer never re-

peats his crime." If not executed, a murderer will be on the street in a few years.

Support for Painful Executions Murderers should suffer when they are executed. I might support the use of burning alive to execute those who commit

the most heinous crimes. If people have to be executed, they should be executed in the most

painless way possible." The electric chair should be quick and painless." Executions should be as bloodless as possible." The crime problem has gotten so bad that maybe we should bring

back public hangings. We should use more graphic forms of executions (such as a firing

squad). When using the electric chair for executions, the voltage should be

applied slowly so the criminal suffers before dying.

Belief in Retribution Society does not have the right to get revenge for murder." For a terrible crime, there should be a terrible punishment. Even the worst criminal should be considered for mercy." Those who hurt others deserve to be hurt in return. Punishment should fit the crime.

Note. Response scale for all items was strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (1) except for the nationalism, anti-Black racism, and chauvinism items, which were very negative (1) to very positive (7). The instructions for the Wars scales were to indicate how much the subject agreed or disagreed that his or her country would be justified in using military force (for the items beginning with "to" or "for") or agreement or dis- agreement with support for military use of force in general (for items that are complete sentences). " Item was reverse-coded. b Item was omitted in Sample 6. c Item was omitted in Sample 8. d Item was omitted in Sample 9. * Item was omitted in Sample 2.

Appendix C

Items on the 16-Item Social Dominance Orientation Scale

1. Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups. 2. In getting what you want, it is sometimes necessary to use force

against other groups. 3. It's OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others. 4. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other

groups. 5. If certain groups stayed in their place, we would have fewer

problems. 6. It's probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and

other groups are at the bottom. 7. Inferior groups should stay in their place. 8. Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place. 9. It would be good if groups could be equal.

10. Group equality should be our ideal.

11. All groups should be given an equal chance in life. 12. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different

groups. 13. Increased social equality. 14. We would have fewer problems if we treated people more equally. 15. We should strive to make incomes as equal as possible. 16. No one group should dominate in society.

Items 9-16 should be reverse-coded. The response scale was very nega- tive (1) to very positive (7).

Received July 8, 1993 Revision received May 10, 1994

Accepted May 11, 1994 •