Consciousness III: Fact or Fiction?

Abstract

Reich's tripartite theory of social consciousness, as formulated in his book, The Greening of America, was translated into quantitative Consciousness I, II, and III scales, based on a content analysis of pertinent chapters in the book. Subsequent order analysis of these scales indicated only two dimensions, as did factor analysis of the scores, along with Tellegen's Absorption and Authoritarianism scales and Tomkin's Polarity scale. Canonical correlations suggested that a substantial amount of variance in the consciousness scales can be accounted for by traditional conservative-liberal constructs.