ABSTRACT
There are many theoretical reasons to expect that social attitude patterns and belief systems will partly reflect temperamental and personality factors. For example, Eysenck (1954) found that Fascists and Communists had in common high scores on a social attitude factor called Toughmindedness, and that this factor was related to extraversion and aggressiveness as measured by questionnaires. Similarly, many social psychologists have argued that racial prejudice may arise as a response to frustration or fear (e.g., Adorno et al., 1950; Bagley, 1972). Some confirmation of this hypothesis may be found in the evidence concerning the connections between certain religious attitudes and behaviours and racial prejudice reviewed by Wilson and Bagley in Chapter 7. Wilson, Ausman and Mathews (1973) have hypothesized that the conservatism factor in social attitudes is a reflection of a generalized fear of uncertainty, whether stimulus uncertainty (complexity, ambiguity, novelty, change, etc., as states of the physical and social environment) or response uncertainty (freedom of choice, need conflict, etc., originating from within the individual).
