The Gulf War and the Rodney King Beating: Implications of the General Conservatism and Social Dominance Perspectives

Abstract

Both general conservatism and social dominance theory require relatively strong and significant relationships among indicators of racism, support for the Persian Gulf War, and approval of police actions in the Rodney King incident. With a nonprobability sample of 131 adults from Los Angeles, significant relationships were found among these variables as predicted by both theories. However, structural equation analysis disclosed that only social dominance theory was able to give a fully acceptable account of the entire matrix of correlations among the background and attitudinal variables involved. The data indicated that political conservatism, belief in racial superiority, caste-maintenance orientation, support of the Gulf War, and approval of police behavior in the beating of Rodney King were all significantly related to and possibly driven by a person's desire for group dominance (i.e., social dominance orientation). The relatively strong and consistent relationships among these variables were considered as possible evidence of a group-based form of ideological coherence (Converse, 1964).