Dogmatism and Presidential Preferences in the 1964 Elections

Abstract

A quota sample of voting-age male undergraduates was administered Form E of the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale as part of an interview schedule concerned with interest and activity in the 1964 presidential campaign and election. Results support previous evidence that dogmatism interacts significantly with political party preference but that the interaction of dogmatism and presidential preferences, despite the correlation with party preferences, is of much greater magnitude. Non-dogmatic scorers overwhelmingly selected Johnson; while dogmatic scorers, despite a slight preference for Goldwater, were more evenly divided in their preferences for presidential candidates. Personality provides a partial explanation for the political dynamics of “frontlash” and “backlash” alleged to have taken place in the 1964 elections. Voting behavior as a function of some measure of identification between the political elector and the political candidate is supported and the structure and the function of the polity seem in part dependent upon the personality structures of the political functionaries recruited into it and the congruent interaction of both the psychological and the sociological structures.