Conservatism as a general factor of social attitudes

Abstract

Previous studies showed the existence of general factors in cognitive abilities, personality traits, and psychopathology symptoms. We hypothesized a similar factor on the apex of social attitudes? hierarchy; furthermore, we assumed that this factor reflects a conservatism-liberalism dimension. This hypothesis is tested by factorizing the space of ?isms? ? a broad and comprehensive model of social attitudes obtained by the lexical paradigm, in an online study (N = 380; Mage = 32.34[SD = 11.74]; 66.8% females; participants were of Serbian nationality). A General factor is obtained and it was positively loaded by Tradition-oriented Religiousness (.76), Unmitigated Self-Interest (.76), and Subjective Spirituality (.34), with negative loadings of Communal Rationalism (-.53) and Inequality Aversion (-.46). Afterwards, we explored the nomological network of this factor: it correlated positively with the Social Dominance Orientation measure of Social Domination, Social Conservatism, Conservation Values, and Binding Moral Foundations; it also had negative associations with the Social Dominance Orientation measure of Egalitarianism, Self-transcendence Values, Individualizing Moral Foundations, Openness to Experience, Support for EU Integrations, Kosovo Independence, and Immigrants? Integration. The obtained nomological network is congruent with the interpretation of the General factor as conservatism. The data suggest that lay people have a singular core attitudinal dimension which they use to interpret and make sense of societal events and this fundamental dimension is conservatism-liberalism.