EAST-WEST DIMENSIONS OF IDEOLOGY MEASURED BY TRANSTEMPORAL COGNITIVE MATCHING

David J. Krus and Harold S. Blackman
Arizona State University

Summary.-Contemporary romantic revival bears close resemblance to previous romantic movements in ways of structuring reality, styles of thought, and partisan support of certain types of preferred societal outcomes. The quantification of the postulated structural similarity between two recent romantic periods was discussed using the method of transtemporal cognitive matching. The target structure was based on analysis of Goethe's Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers; referent neo-romantic structures were derived from Reich's The Greening of America and Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Relationships between target and referent structures were quantified and interpreted within the context of the East-West dimensions of cognitive systems.

Contemporary social science is ahistorical. It supplanted earlier speculative analyses of societal and cognitive systems with interpretative analyses of data-based structures centered on descriptions of the fine fabric of interrelations between elements of societal and cognitive systems. The nomological network is elaborated in horizontal, intersystem fashion to verify theories and hypotheses sans temporal components. Conceptual links along the vertical, time related dimensions are few and widely spaced. The paucity of research incorporating the historical perspective is especially visible when the over-all tenor of the discipline is contemplated. The majority of described relations are interpreted as novel and unique; omnia nova replacing nihil novi. The positive manifold properties of cognitive and societal systems are accentuated. Everything is related to everything else.

The attempts to combine the historical perspectives with quantitative methodology are hindered by considerable technical and methodological difficulties.  In addition to longitudinal research, comparisons of quantitatively derived structures over time can provide for addition of the temporal dimension. Examples of this type of methodology are replications of the early quantitative studies of attitudes and social values (Coombs, 1967; Krus, Sherman, & Krus, 1977); however, temporally remote, quantitatively derived structures are scarce.

Content analysis of historical documents is the most frequently used method for capturing the historical perspective, as exemplified by research of McClelland (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953; Bradburn & Berlew, 1961; McClelland, 1961, 1975) and Christie's groups (Christie & Geis, 1968; Jones & Daugherty, 1959; Durkin, 1970) A variation of content analysis is the method of transtemporal cognitive matching. An analyzed document is conceptualized as an imprint of a cognitive system. The structure of this system is reconstructed by some type of formal strategies, typically by a theoretical strategy with subsequent scale development by maximizing internal consistency through homogeneous keying. Provided the structure is internally consistent, a referent structure is constructed, using a comparable and theoretically relevant frame of reference. The target (historical) and referent (contemporal) structures are matched, their common structure is determined and the degree of their overlap is quantified.

Several conditions pertaining to the character of the target and referent structures have to be met. Both structures have to be internally consistent though not necessarily unidimensional. Multidimensional structures should be simple and stable. Probability of a close match of complicated structures is low. The target structure should be manifest. This requirement is best illustrated by considering the direct expressions of values as contrasted with values expressed 'between the lines.' The frequently employed inter-legere inferences are possible, but introduce additional assumptions into the analysis. Both the target and referent structures have to be quantifiable and comparable.

The present communication describes a transtemporal cognitive matching experiment. The target structure was derived from Goethe's book Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers; the referent structure was based on scales reflecting the East-West philosophical perspective and scales pertaining to Dionysian and Apollonian psychological constructs. The temporal distance of the target structure was about two centuries.

METHOD

Design of the transtemporal cognitive matching experiment was based jointly on theoretical analysis of both target and referent structures and technical considerations with respect to selection of the target structure. Theoretical considerations encompassed a hypothesis that the contemporary revival of romanticism parallels the classical period of European romanticism around the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This hypothesis was repeatedly suggested as an explanatory construct by numerous writers within the area of sociology, philosophy and history (Cotgrove, 1978; Horton & Finnegan, 1973; Greisman, 1976)

Location of the target structure within the theoretically and temporally defined domain was a rather tedious process, based on library research for relevant documents. Despite the fact that most communications are not value-free, direct expositions of value systems are quite infrequent, since open disclosure of values may lead to controversy which authors sometimes, but not always, try to avoid. The societal impact of direct disclosures of a value system is typically substantial, provided the values are relevant. Controversiality of the values contained by the target document increases variance necessary for adequate interlocking of target and referent structures.

Among several prospects, Goethe's (1774) book showed the best match with the discussed criteria. Subsequently, a group of 22 graduate students read the book and recorded sentences expressing quantifiable value judgments. Sentences selected by two or more judges were assembled into a questionnaire with agree-disagree response categories and administered to a group of 60 subjects. Following item analysis, the Goethe scale was constructed from the best discriminating items as recorded in Table 1. The content validity of the Goethe scale was substantial with selected items evenly distributed over all chapters of the book. The scale was also internally consistent with reliability estimated by Kuder-Richardson's Formula 20 equal .75.

TABLE 1. Goethe’s Romanticism Scale with Means, Standard Deviations, and Item Discrimination Indices.

The design of the referent structure was conceptualized to capture ideological, psychological and philosophical characteristics of the contemporary neo-romantic movement. The ideological background was provided by analysis of recent bestsellers; Reich's (1971) Greening of America and Pirsig's (1975) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Development and construct validation of the Consciousness scales based on Reich's book and the Zen scale derived from Pirsig's book was reported by Krus and Tellegen (1975) and by Krus and Krus (1978) Structure of both scales contrasted the Dionysian and Apollonian orientations of psychological attributes (Spiegel, 1977), as summarized in Table 2.

TABLE 2.  Psychological Categories Pertaining to
Dionysian and Apollonian Styles of Thought

Additional scales, indexing the psychological attributes of the referent structure were Tellegen and Atkinson's (1973) Absorption scale and Tellegen's (1972) normative scale. The Absorption scale measures openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences and is moderately related to hypnotic susceptibility. Tellegen's normative scale measures preferences for structured societal rules and orderly society, based on legalistic principles and non-relativistic ethical value codes. It also indicates lack of anomy and presence of internalized standards of conduct.

The philosophical perspective was provided by Gilgen and Cho's (1979) East and West scales. Based on analysis of modes of thought as typical of traditional Eastern and Western civilizations, the East-West scales contrast the assumptions of both civilization types pertaining to the key ethical and epistemological issues (Ames, 1962; Barrett, 1960; Park, 1979; Suzuki, Fromm, & DeMarino, 1960), as summarized in Table 3. The East and West scales were constructed separately to avoid bipolarity of the Gilgen and Cho (1979, p. 839) scoring procedure.

TABLE 3.  Categories Pertaining to
 East-West Styles of Thought

All scales were assembled into a 285-item questionnaire and administered to a group of 63 subjects, fairly heterogeneous with respect to age (M = 33 years, SD = 14.71), gender, and educational and occupational background.

RESULTS

Intercorrelations of scales, included in the analysis, are presented in Table 4. The Goethe scale showed substantial correlations with all scales indexing the neo-romantic cognitive styles and virtually no relationship to the modes of thought typical of the classic Western intellectual outlook. Also of interest are high correlations of both romantic and neo-romantic scales with the Eastern philosophical perspective.

 TABLE 4. Intercorrelations between scales indexing the
East-West Dimensions

 Factor analysis of the correlation matrix returned two eigenvalues greater than one for the preliminary principal components solution. Squared multiple correlations were used as communality estimates in the principal factors solution. Communalities were iterated until converged. Two extracted factors accounted for 60% of the total variance and for 59% and 41% of the common variance. The factor matrix was rotated by Varimax into simple structure and resulting factor loadings were plotted in Figure 1.

 FIGURE 1   Factorial Structure of the East-West Dimensions.

 The horizontal factor in Figure 1 was interpreted as reflecting the basic assumptions underlying the Eastern ideological and philosophical types of value systems and Dionysian types of styles of thought. The vertical factor indexed the Western perspective and Apollonian types of psychological variables.

The amount of variance common to referent scales and the target Goethe romanticism scale was estimated by multiple regression analysis (Table 5) The stepwise mode of inclusion was used with significance of each increment being evaluated by the F ratio. Inclusion continued until the five percent significance level was exceeded. The resulting multiple correlation (R = .76), together with the factor analysis indicate the presence of shared cognitive and conceptual determinants of the styles of thought, values, and philosophical orientations among protagonists of the classical and neo-romantic  movements.

TABLE 5   Multiple Correlations and Beta Weights of
 Scales Regressed on Goethe’s Romanticism Scale

 
DISCUSSION

Throughout history, a conflict between two basic types of value systems can be observed. The content of these controversies is subject to periodic modifications. However, the major philosophical and psychological attributes, underlying this controversy, remain relatively stable.

At the philosophical level, the cognitive determinants of a particular type of the value system pertain to the relationship of an individual and society, to the nature of knowledge, reality and subjective experience, to the acceptance or rejection of religious beliefs and the meaning of existence. At the psychological level these attributes encompass individuals' perceptual styles, types of psychological orientation in both time and space, complexity of cognitive process and preponderance of either affective or cognitive types of belief systems. It is the last dichotomy that seems to permeate most of the value conflicts throughout the recorded history. The stability of this type of conflict suggests that it is possibly inherent to our central nervous system. The triune concept of the brain (Boag & Campbell, 1973) seems to support this hypothesis.

The obtained structure of ideological communications, spanning two centuries, lends support to the frequently postulated historical librations from rationalistic to romantic periods and back. It is not contradictory to the oscillation concept of unfolding of historical events, repeatedly suggested as a causative agent of societal change. Also, the observed temporal amplitude seems to fit estimates suggested by Denton and Phillips (1968) and by Krus and Blackman (1980) for changes in ideological polarities of predominant images about a preferred type of a societal climate.

Integration of the East-West, Dionysian versus Apollonian explanatory constructs for both philosophical and psychological planes of discourse together with historical perspective provided by transtemporal cognitive matching offers additional insights into the dynamics of societal development. Also, it could provide more information for decisions in which of the alternative futures we elect to live.

 REFERENCES

Ames, V.M. (1962) Zen and American thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Barrett, W. (1960) Zen for the West. In N.W. Ross (Ed.) The world of Zen: an East-West anthology. NY: Random House, pp. 341-352.

Boag, T.J., & Campbell D. (Eds.) (1973) A triune concept of the brain and behavior. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bradburn, N.M., & Berlew, D.G. (1961)  Need for achievement and English economic growth. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 10, 8-20.

Christie, R., & Geis, F.L. (1968)  Some consequence of taking Machiavelli seriously. In F.F. Borgatta & W.W. Lambert (Eds.) Handbook of personality theory and research. Chicago: Rand McNally, pp. 959-973.

Coombs, C.H. (1967) Thurstone's measurement of social values revisited forty years later. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 85-91.

Cotgrove, S. (1978) Styles of thought: Science, romanticism and modernization. British Journal of Sociology, 29, 358-371.

Denton, F.H., & Phillips, W. (1968) Some patterns in the history of violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 12, 182-195.

Durkin, J.E. (1970) Encountering: What low Machs do. In R. Christie & F.L. Geis (Eds.) Studies in Machiavellianism. NY: Academic Press, pp. 260-284.

Gilgen, A.R., & Cho, J.H. (1979) Questionnaire to measure Eastern and Western thought. Psychological Reports, 44, 835-841.

Goethe, J.W. (1962) The sorrows of young Werther. NY: Signet. (Originally published 1774)

Greisman, H.C. (1976) Disenchantment of the world: romanticism, aesthetics and sociological theory. British Journal of Sociology, 27, 496-499.

Horton, R., & Finnegan, R. (1973) Modes of thought. London: Faber.

Jones, E.E., & Daugherty, B.N. (1959) Political orientation and the perceptual effects of an anticipated interaction. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 340-349.

Krus, D.J., & Blackman, H.S. (1980) Time scale factor as related to theories of societal change. Psychological Reports, 46, 95-102.

Krus, D.J., & Kennedy, P.H. (1978) Measuring value systems as related to societal change. Psychological Reports, 43, 3-9.

Krus, D.J., Sherman, J.L., & Kennedy, P.H. (1977) Changing values over the last half-century: The story of Thurstone's crime scales. Psychological Reports, 40, 207-211.

Krus, J.J., & Tellegen, A. (1975) Consciousness III: Fact or fiction? Psychological Reports, 36, 23-30.

McClelland, D.C. (1961) The achieving society. NY: Irvington.

McClelland, D.C. (1975) Power: the inner experience. NY: Irvington.

McClelland, D.C., Atkinson, J.W., Clark, R.A., & Lowell, E.L. (1953) The achievement motive. NY: Irvington.

Park, O. (1979) Oriental ideas in recent religious thought. Lakemont, GA: CSA Press.

Pirsig, R.M. (1975) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. NY: Bantam.

Reich, C.A. (1971) The greening of America. NY: Bantam.

Spiegel, H. (1977) The hypnotic induction profile (HIP): A review of its development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 296, 129-142.

Suzuki, D.T., Fromm, E., & Demarino, R. (1960) Zen Buddhism and psychoanalysis. NY: Harper.

Tellegen, A. (1972) The Q3 research form of an attitudinal questionnaire. Minneapolis, MN: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota.

Tellegen, A., & Atkinson, G. (1973) Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences ('absorption'), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 33,268-277.