Structure of social attitudes based on lexical approach in Serbian-speaking area

Abstract

Although usually applied in the field of personality psychology, in the last decade there were attempts of applying the lexical paradigm in the studies social attitudes studies. One of those attempts was made by Saucier (2000), who included and analyzed all the words ending with the suffix ?-ism?. The product of this analyze is a two-form instrument called "Survey of Dictionary-Based Isms (SDI)", with its long, 40-item version, and brief, 28-item version. This instrument measures four main dimensions of basic social attitudes: alphaisms (traditional and religious sources of authority), betaisms (dismissing political correctness), gammaisms (believing in Western democracy) and deltaisms (personal spirituality). Until now, this instrument was only used in English-speaking area, and therefore the objective of this research was evaluation and validation of Saucier?s basic structure of social attitudes model in the Serbian-speaking area. In this research, conducted on the sample of 253 participants, both sexes, average age of 39.3 years (SD=14.9), a slightly shortened version of Saucier?s 24-item questionnaire was used. The results of this study contribute to the hypothesis of a universal structure of basic social attitudes: the factor analysis extracted four factors, which correlate from moderate to high level with the original dimensions. However, the structure and content of the factors pointed to a strong cultural influence on the forming and shaping the basic social attitudes. Practically, only the first factor, Religiosity, is a full replication of the original alpha factor. Other items built the factors somewhat different from the original: Hedonism, Rational Spirituality and Nationalism. The results show a better fitness of the model obtained in this study for the Serbian-speaking area compared to the original one.Iako se najcesce primenjuje u oblasti psihologije licnosti, u poslednjih nekoliko godina izvrseni su pokusaji aplikacije leksicke paradigme u istrazivanju socijalnih stavova. Jedan takav pokusaj je nacinio Saucier (2000), ukljucujuci i analizirajuci sve one reci koje se zavrsavaju sufiksom -izam (engl. -ism). Produkt te analize je instrument "Inventar na recniku zasnovanih izama", sa dve forme: duzom, 40-ajtemskom, i kracom, 24-ajtemskom. Ovaj instrument upitnickog tipa meri 4 glavne dimenzije stavova: alfaizme (tradicionalni i religiozni izvori autoriteta), betaizme (odbijanje politicke korektnosti), gamaizme (verovanje u zapadne demokratske vrednosti) i deltaizme (licna duhovnost). Ovaj instrument je do sada koriscen iskljucivo na engleskom govornom podrucju, pa je stoga postavljen cilj ovog istrazivanja evaluacija i validacija Saucier-ovog modela bazicne strukture socijalnih stavova primenjenih na srpskom govornom podrucju. U istrazivanju, obavljenom na uzorku od 253 ispitanika oba pola, prosecne starosti od 39.3 godine (SD=14.9), koriscena je skracena, 24- ajtemska verzija ovog instrumenta. U osnovi, rezultati ovog istrazivanja daju doprinos hipotezi o univerzalnoj strukturi bazicnih socijalnih stavova: faktorskom analizom ekstrahovana su 4 faktora, koja sa izvornim dimenzijama umereno do visoko koreliraju. Medjutim, struktura i sadrzina samih faktora ukazuju na jak kulturoloski uticaj na formiranje i oblikovanje samih bazicnih socijalnih stavova. Prakticno, samo prvi faktor, Religioznost, predstavlja punu replikaciju izvornog faktora. Ostali ajtemi izgradili su faktore u izvesnoj meri razlicite od izvornih: Hedonizam, Racionalnu duhovnost i Nacionalnu privrzenost. Rezultati pokazuju bolju podesnost modela dobijenog u ovom istrazivanju u odnosu na originalni model kada je u pitanju srpsko govorno podrucje.