Interpretation of the “City Hall Riots” as a Function of General Dogmatism

Bibliographic Data

ID13675201
AuthorsJohn Mc Carthy (San Jose State College, corresponding author), Ronald C Johnson (0000-0002-3221-034X, University of Hawaii System)
Year1962
Volume11
Issue1
Pages243-245
Publication date1962-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePsychological Reports (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-2941 • E-ISSN: 1558-691X
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2466/pr0.1962.11.1.243
OpenAlexW2127160203
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited2

On May 13, 1960, rhe House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) continued its hearings (begun several days earlier) on the wing activities in the San Francisco Bay area. A disturbance took place outside of the chambers of the San Francisco City Hall, in which the hearings were being held. Students and other individuals picketing the hearings inside of the ciry hall clashed with police. This disturbance had nation-wide publicity at the time of its occurrence and has remained a subject of controversy. The demonstrators held that they did not initiate the clash, and further, that they were well within their legal rights to picket the proceedings. J. Edgar Hoover, in a statement (the Hoover report) described the picketing as communist inspired and said that the demonstrators were responsible for the clash with the police. The movie, Operation Abolitio~, endorsed by the HCUA, presents the position that communist inspired students were responsible for the disturbance. The record, Sounds of Protest, produced by students, presents a poinc of view in direct opposition to that expressed in Operation Abolition. Quice clearly, two opposing positions can be taken with respect to this disturbance. A study by Simos (1956) demonstrates that there is a relation between the degree of generalized ethnocentrism shown by Ss and their attitudes toward specific controversial issues. The present study is an attempt to determine whether degree of general dogmatism, as measured by Rokeach's ( 1956) D scale (which presumably measures authoritarianism of the left as well as of the right) is related to the position take by Ss regarding the demonstrations against the HCUA

Function (biology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Educational, Social, and Political Issues · Human Behavior and Motivation · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub