After reading through many different articles on social dominance theory (SDT), a common theme that ubiquitously appeared is conservatism.? The relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and conservatism is explored in the article: "Racism, conservatism, Affirmative Action, and intellectual sophistication: A matter of principled conservatism or group dominance?" by Sidanius, Pratto, and Bobo (1996).?
This article is relevant to our study because vast majority of Americans align with the principles and ideas of the two major political parties: democratic and republican. Democrats have more liberal values while republicans have more conservative values. Many of the articles I have read implicitly implied that conservatism and racism are of the same thing. Of course many conservatives disagree because being racist today is socially unacceptable in most places in America. ? The question here is whether conservatism in itself is racist? A theory call 'principled conservatism model' says no because conservatism is driven by fighting for equality, fairness, and establishing a color-blind society (Sidanius et al., 1996). Furthermore, the model posits that conservatism's link to racism is due to a lack of education and that correlation between the educated and conservative is weak. Lastly, the model suggests that political conservatism is not related to racism (Sidanius et al., 1996).?
The study surveyed almost four thousand Euro-American students at the University of Texas asking about their educational level, political views, affirmative action attitudes, and racism. The findings are mostly non-conclusive. "Opposition to affirmative action among Whites cannot be exclusively understood in terms of either anti-Black affect, classical racism, or SDO" (Sidanius, et al., 1996). However, one strong conclusion is that racism declines with education is not only unfound, but rather, the opposite is true (Sidanius, et al., 1996).? Another key finding is that he social dominance theory gives the best explanation as to why racism and political conservatism are so often linked. The reason is that both racism and SDO has the mutual desire for non-egalitarian, or unfairness, and hierarchically structured social classes.?
After all, what is considered racism? Is it the attitude towards a certain group? A certain political views? Being against affirmative action? It appears that the idea of racism itself is a vague term and in linking it to political conservatism makes it even more vague. It is no doubt that conservatism has negative affect towards blacks and other ethnic groups, but it is unclear if it is directly linked to racism. The common ground here is that both racism and SDO have a similar direction and, thus, SDO give the best perspective amongst all that is extremely unclear. Studies on racism can be very difficult, especially today. Surveys can only give so much insight because it is unknown how truthful the participants are.?
Reference
Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., & Bobo, L. (1996). Racism, conservatism, Affirmative Action, and intellectual sophistication: A matter of principled conservatism or group dominance?. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 70(3), 476-490. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.476
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