Psychologie a její kontexty, Vol.8, No.2

Hodnota rovnosti jako významný ukazatel politické orientace – vývoj škály rovnosti

The equality as factor of political orientation – The new scale development

Irena Smetáčková, Tereza Komárková

Politická orientace je důležitým vodítkem ve výzkumech postojů a stereotypů, protože zahraniční psychologické studie potvrzují, že lidé s rozdílnou politickou orientací se liší jejich obsahem i sílou (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Politická orientace bývá měřena buď sebezařazovací otázkou, nebo hodnocením baterie výroků. V českém prostředí bylo potvrzeno, že deklarovaná politická orientace s vyjadřovanými politickými postoji a hodnotami nesouvisí (Vinopal, 2006). Pro bezpečnější interpretaci je proto vhodnější používat komplexnější nástroje, které prostřednictvím sady položek mapují více aspektů politické orientace. V českém prostředí chybí psychologicky relevantní dotazník na měření politické orientace. Článek představuje vývoj nové škály, která se zaměřuje na rovnost jako klíčovou hodnotu v základu politické orientace. Škála zahrnuje sedm položek rozdělených do subškály Rovnost a subškály Zachování nerovnosti. Škála koreluje se sebezařazením politické orientace. Ačkoliv souhrnné psychometrické charakteristiky škály jsou dobré, kvůli rozporuplnosti některých dílčích charakteristik škála vyžaduje další vývoj.

Klíčová slova:
politická orientace, rovnost, levice, pravice, měření politické orientace

Political orientation is a topic in political science and sociology, however it is an important concept in psychology as well. Many research results show that people differ in their values, attitudes, stereotypes and behavior with regard to political orientation (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Therefore it is important to have an effective measuring tool grounded in psychological concept of political orientation. Unfortunately there is no such for the Czech society. Political orientation is defined through two different scales. One is conservatism-liberalism scale which is entrenched in the USA, other is left-right scale which is entrenched in European countries (Cottam, Dietz-Uhler, Mastors, & Preston, 2010). In most states, those two scales correlate strongly. But in the post-communist countries, especially in the Czech Republic, such correlation does not exist (Bardi, & Schwartz, 1996). Following reasons are discussed: unstable values due to historical shift; unstable political scene; low reflection on political attitudes. As a result, there is a gap between self-declaration of political orientation and attitudes and values referring to political issues. Because of unclear interpretation, complex measuring tools should be preferred over self-declarative question. The complex measurements are provided by questionnaires based on a set of statements covering more dimensions of political orientation. Usually, two dimensions of political orientation are designated – social and economic. Social dimension embodies human rights, moral rules and traditions; economical dimension embodies principles of market. Between social and economic dimension can be disagreement. That´s why most questionnaires are focused only on one scale or are composite from two partly independent scales. The equality is usually considered as an element of social dimension of political orientation. However, we postulate that equality is a basic value which underlays both social and economic dimension of political orientation. If person considers people as equal, s/he demands for state-guaranteed mechanisms to support equality. And vice versa, if person considers people as unequal, s/he defends individualism and a lack of state-regulations (Hnilica, 2001; Heywood, 2015). We have developed a new scale of equality. The development followed the quantitative and the qualitative analysis of pilot questionnaire. The final questionnaire was used on sample of 527 people. The scale consists of seven statements divided into two subscales. The subscale “Equality” includes following statements: 1. State should guarantee the equal opportunities for all people, 2. All working people should have the similar salary without regard to certain occupations, 3. Society should protect people with lower abilities which are necessary for success, 4. Inequalities are wrong and thus the state should strive for their removal. The subscale “Preservation of inequalities” includes following statements: 1. Families should take care of people with low abilities, old people and ill people, not state, 2. State should support rather talented and active people then people below the average, 3. Poor and socially weak people are usually responsible for their low living standard. The reliability (measured by Cronbach Alpha) of first subscale is 0.71, second subscale 0.42 and the scale together 0.42. Other psychometrics (standard deviation, skewness, steepness, discrimination) are good enough. We found the first subscale very effective, but the second subscale should be improved. Based on previous research, we expected no correlation between equality scale and self-declaration of political orientation. However, the correlation exists (r=0.32, p<0.001). People who claim left political orientation score higher in equality scale than people who claim right political orientation.

Keywords:
political orientation, equality, left-right, conservatism-liberalism, measuring tool