Free Speech Advocates at Berkeley

Abstract

This study compares highly committed members of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley with the student population at large on three sociopsychological foci: general biographical data, religious orientation, and rigidity-flexibility. Questionnaires were administered to 172 FSM members selected by chance from the ten to twelve hundred who entered and "sat-in" the Administration Building at the University of California on December 2, 1964. A comparative sample of 146 student respondents, selected randomly from the student directory, was obtained by mail. Results indicated that the sit-ins were younger and more homogeneous in age, had parents who were more academically elite (in terms of Ph.D. and M.A. degrees held), and comprised a larger proportion of females than that of the cross-sectional group. No differences were obtained in academic achievement (accumulative grade point average) or in birth order and number of siblings. It was found, as predicted, that the FSM members were less influenced by formalized religion than the cross-sectional group representing the student body and that they were also less rigid, as measured by a 27-item scale of rigidity-flexibility. This latter finding is of particular interest, considering the purported rigidity of the FSM in negotiations with the University administration, and suggests the necessity of distinguishing between a trait of rigidity as psychologically defined and commitment.