Political Opinion and Personal Security

Various writers have postulated a relation between feelings of personal insecurity, tenseness, & interpersonal maladjustment &. radicalism. Some writers have argued that radicalism may be associated with security when the radical is identified with a group holding radical beliefs. However, various types of measurement of personal security have been used, some of dubious value for interpersonal relations, & equally dubious & confusing measures of pol'al opinion have been used. This study is concerned with developing a scale of radicalism-conservatism (R-C) & relating it to a scale of personal security (S-I) utilizing a variety of groups of S's & controlling for several status variables, neurotic behavior, & sex. The S-I scale used was a 25 item subscale of Maslow's 75 item SecurityInsecurity Inventory. The R-C scale was a 14 item test with items drawn from Eysenck, Centers, & the California Opinion Study. Measures of reliability & validity were computed for the R-C test & were sufficiently high to indicate the test was acceptably discriminative. 14 groups of S's were given the S-I & R-C scales, & were (presumably) given a Jcontaining items directed at: income, pol'al affiliation, subjective SC placement, occup, educ, religion, age & sex. In addition, MMPI scores were available on one group, chosen because the individuals showed high scores on the neurotic triad. A signif curvilinear r between security & conservatism, insecurity & radicalism, is found. The relation is fairly clearcut for security & conservatism, but not for insecurity & radicalism. Those radicals who are 'lone wolves' are insecure, but those radicals who are also active members of radical groups are secure. Republicans score securely, Socialists & Progressives insecurely, & Democrats in between. Professional &Uc S's score conservatively & secure, Lc or We radical & insecure, & UMc inbetween. A direct relation is also found between: income & conservatism, income & security (though less signif'ly), higher status occup & conservatism, Protestants & conservatism & security, Jews & radicalism & insecurity, Cath's conservative but not security, age, & conservatism & security, neurotic triad not fed with either scale, & women slightly more radical but of similar security to men. C. R. Shepherd.