1. Abstract
The Dogmatism Scale (commonly referred to as the D-Scale), developed by social psychologist Milton Rokeach in 1956 and solidified in his seminal 1960 monograph The Open and Closed Mind, is a 40-item self-report psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate the cognitive organization of belief-disbelief systems along a structural continuum of openness versus closedness. Designed explicitly as a general, content-free alternative to the ideologically restrictive California F-Scale (Adorno et al., 1950), the D-Scale captures individual differences in cognitive rigidity, authoritarian intolerance, and absolute reliance on authority regardless of whether an individual adheres to right-wing, left-wing, religious, or secular doctrinal frameworks. The instrument conceptualizes dogmatism not as the specific substance of one’s convictions, but as the underlying architecture through which beliefs are maintained, isolated, and defended against discrepant reality.
The scale employs a 6-point forced-choice Likert agreement format ranging from -3 (“strongly disagree”) to +3 (“strongly agree”), systematically omitting a neutral zero point to prevent equivocation. For quantitative scoring, raw item ratings are converted to a 1 to 7 scale by adding an invariant constant of 4, yielding a cumulative global score ranging from 40 to 280, wherein elevated aggregates reflect pronounced closedness, defensive compartmentalization, and externalized threat perception. Psychometrically, Form E of the D-Scale demonstrates internal consistency coefficients ranging from .68 to .93 across diverse normative strata, including university undergraduates, industrial laborers, and institutionalized veterans. Construct and concurrent validity have been evidenced via known-groups sociometric profiling, problem-solving paradigm experiments, and divergent structural investigations contrasting political extremism across ideological spectra. This comprehensive monograph details the historical etiology, psychometric architecture, factor analytic controversies, cross-cultural parameters, and contemporary applications of the D-Scale in contemporary cognitive and political psychology.
2. Keywords
Dogmatism Scale, Milton Rokeach, D-Scale Form E, open and closed mind, cognitive rigidity, authoritarianism, belief systems, structural compartmentalization, ideological intolerance, psychometrics
3. Authors
The Dogmatism Scale was formulated and standardized by Milton Rokeach (1918–1988), an eminent Polish-American social psychologist whose pioneering investigations reshaped psychological understandings of personal values, belief systems, and social attitudes. Rokeach completed his doctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was exposed to the foundational inquiries of Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford concerning the authoritarian personality. Discontented with the F-Scale’s theoretical conflation of general authoritarianism with right-wing fascism, Rokeach spent the bulk of his academic career at Michigan State University and subsequently at Washington State University, formulating a comprehensive structural taxonomy of belief-disbelief matrices.
Throughout his tenure as Professor of Psychology and Sociology, Rokeach authored numerous landmark treatises, including The Open and Closed Mind (1960), Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values (1968), and The Nature of Human Values (1973). Inquiries regarding historical datasets and original psychometric archival materials are curated within the institutional archives of the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824, USA) and the American Psychological Association historical repositories.
4. Purpose
The primary psychometric purpose of the Dogmatism Scale is to operationalize and quantify the structural characteristics of an individual’s total belief-disbelief system, distinguishing sharply between the structure of cognitive functioning and the specific ideological content of an individual’s worldview. Prior to Rokeach’s paradigm shift, mid-twentieth-century psychological investigations into closed-mindedness relied almost exclusively on the California F-Scale (Adorno et al., 1950). While the F-Scale successfully illuminated anti-Semitic, ethnocentric, and proto-fascist behavioral patterns, it suffered from profound construct underrepresentation: it was incapable of identifying dogmatism, authoritarianism, or cognitive rigidity among individuals adhering to left-wing, socialist, non-Western, or anti-fascist doctrines.
Rokeach conceptualized dogmatism as a generalized cognitive defense mechanism against underlying existential dread, chronic vulnerability, and perceived environmental threat. Consequently, the D-Scale was designed to assess the extent to which an individual’s psychological organization is anchored in absolute authority, cognitive compartmentalization, and the pervasive rejection of opposing epistemological paradigms. By evaluating these dynamic features without invoking specific partisan policy preferences, the scale serves as an objective structural barometer applicable across divergent political, theological, philosophical, and institutional domains.
In applied research, the D-Scale fulfills several vital functions:
- Cognitive and Problem-Solving Research: Examining how closed belief architectures inhibit flexible problem-solving, cognitive restructuring, and the integration of novel perceptual information in novel synthetic tasks (e.g., the “Doodlebug Problem”).
- Political Psychology: Investigating symmetry versus asymmetry hypotheses concerning ideological extremism, testing whether cognitive rigidity operates similarly across disparate margins of the political continuum.
- Sociology of Religion: Disentangling institutional religious adherence from rigid, exclusionary orthodoxy, enabling scholars to measure how dogmatic cognition moderates prejudice, interpersonal empathy, and interfaith dialogue.
- Organizational and Communication Studies: Assessing leadership rigidity, resistance to institutional innovation, interpersonal conflict escalation, and communicative selective exposure within high-stakes decision-making environments.
5. Psychological Construct
The psychological construct assessed by the Dogmatism Scale is defined as the relative openness or closedness of an individual’s cognitive belief-disbelief system. Rather than measuring single attitudes or isolated personality traits, the D-Scale captures a high-order, multi-dimensional cognitive network composed of three overarching dimensions, each containing specific structural components:
The Belief-Disbelief Dimension
This structural dimension addresses how congruent ideas (the belief system) and discordant ideas (the disbelief system) are organized relative to one another. Within a closed, dogmatic mind:
- Isolation and Compartmentalization: Incompatible or contradictory beliefs are maintained within strictly segregated cognitive compartments. Because these ideas are insulated from cross-comparison, the individual can simultaneously entertain logically contradictory premises without experiencing cognitive dissonance (e.g., affirming abstract commitment to free speech while actively advocating for the suppression of rival ideological factions).
- Differentiation: A closed system manifests high differentiation within its own belief system (subtle nuances within one’s ingroup are acknowledged) alongside minimal differentiation within the disbelief system (all outgroup perspectives are homogenized into a single, uniform hostile mass).
- Rejection of Disbelief Subsystems: High dogmatism involves an automatic, visceral rejection of counter-attitudinal arguments solely on the basis of their outgroup origin, accompanied by deep-seated interpersonal hostility toward dissenting individuals.
The Central-Peripheral Dimension
This dimension outlines the cognitive hierarchy connecting an individual’s most foundational assumptions about reality (central beliefs) to intermediate attitudes regarding institutional power (intermediate beliefs) and superficial viewpoints (peripheral beliefs):
- Perception of a Threatening World: Central to the dogmatic architecture is the visceral conviction that the cosmos is a fundamentally lonesome, hostile, and perilous environment. As a consequence of this pervasive existential vulnerability, the individual exhibits heightened vigilance, an urgent need for absolute cognitive closure, and profound anxiety regarding future uncertainty.
- Reliance on Absolute Authority: To cope with perceived environmental menace, the dogmatic mind anchors itself to external authorities endowed with absolute, infallible legitimacy. Authority figures are not judged on the rational coherence or empirical validity of their directives; rather, information is validated entirely by the perceived authority of the source.
- Ingroup-Outgroup Polarities: Peripheral beliefs are strictly organized around alignment with the chosen authority. Disagreement with authority directives is viewed as moral failure, treason, or cognitive defect.
The Time-Perspective Dimension
The temporal architecture of the dogmatic individual is characterized by narrowness and structural distortion:
- Future-Oriented Messianism: The present is viewed as inherently degraded, painful, and insignificant, valued only as an instrument to be sacrificed for an idealized, distant future or utopia.
- Historical Fixation: Alternatively, the dogmatic structure may idealize a mythical past, obsessing over historical purity or catastrophic grievances. In both manifestations, comprehensive perception of the nuanced, immediate present is systematically truncated.
6. Theoretical Framework
The Dogmatism Scale is grounded in Milton Rokeach’s comprehensive cognitive-personality model formulated in The Open and Closed Mind (1960). Rokeach synthesized insights from Gestalt psychology, psychodynamic ego-defense theory, and contemporary cognitive structuralism to construct a theory that transcended the psychoanalytic limitations of Adorno et al.’s (1950) authoritarianism framework.
Adorno and colleagues conceptualized authoritarianism as a deep-seated character neurosis stemming from punitive, harsh child-rearing practices. In their view, repressed hostility toward rigid parental figures was displaced onto marginalized minority outgroups, manifesting as right-wing ethnocentrism. Rokeach, while acknowledging the psychodynamic role of anxiety, argued that Adorno’s model was conceptually flawed because it conflated cognitive style with sociopolitical content. Drawing upon Gestalt principles of perceptual organization (such as closure, differentiation, and structural integration), Rokeach posited that all cognitive systems are organized along a formal structural continuum spanning absolute openness to absolute closedness:
The open mind, according to this framework, operates with minimal psychological defense. It evaluates incoming data primarily based on empirical coherence and contextual fit, maintaining fluid boundaries between belief and disbelief domains. In contrast, the closed mind is an anxious, embattled cognitive organization constructed to protect a vulnerable ego against perceived helplessness and existential chaos. The theoretical engine driving closedness is not ideological conviction per se, but the structural mandate to defend the individual against catastrophic threat through rigid cognitive closure, strict obedience to perceived authority, and defensive rejection of cognitive ambiguity.
7. Validity
The construct, criterion, and concurrent validity of the Dogmatism Scale have been subjected to extensive empirical evaluation across diverse populations, sociopolitical contexts, and behavioral tasks.
Known-Groups Construct Validation
Rokeach initially employed the method of “Known Groups” to test the operational fidelity of the D-Scale. In the primary validation series conducted at Michigan State University, university faculty and student peers were tasked with identifying individuals exhibiting clear manifestations of extreme openness versus extreme dogmatic closedness based on strict operational rubrics. In peer-nomination paradigms, individuals identified as highly dogmatic scored significantly higher on Form E than those identified as open-minded (p < .01). However, in faculty-nomination experiments, statistically significant differentials failed to emerge across scales. Rokeach accounted for this divergence by identifying a situational “masking effect,” noting that hierarchical student-professor interactions encourage students to project a compliant, intellectually open persona, obscuring deep-seated cognitive rigidity that is readily observed in natural peer dynamics.
Experimental and Problem-Solving Criterion Validity
To demonstrate that the D-Scale measures structural cognitive processing rather than simple verbal attitude assent, Rokeach utilized experimental problem-solving paradigms, most notably the Doodlebug Problem. This complex cognitive synthesis task required participants to overcome pervasive implicit perceptual assumptions, integrate novel physical rules, and restructure their conceptual field to reach a solution. Consistently, high-dogmatic participants exhibited statistically significant delays in synthesizing novel visual-conceptual systems compared to low-dogmatic participants, despite possessing equivalent general intelligence scores. High-dogmatic individuals demonstrated marked cognitive inertia, repeatedly defaulting to traditional conceptual habits and experiencing acute distress when forced to synthesize unfamiliar premises.
Convergent and Discriminant Validity
Across decades of subsequent empirical literature, the D-Scale has displayed systematic convergent associations with related constructs: positive correlations with the California F-Scale (typically ranging from .50 to .75), the Rokeach Opinionation Scale, intolerance of ambiguity, and death anxiety. Crucially, discriminant validity was demonstrated through political cross-validation: whereas the California F-Scale correlated almost exclusively with right-wing conservativism, the D-Scale successfully identified elevated cognitive rigidity within extreme communist, radical left-wing, and fundamentalist religious cadres without displaying uniform bias toward standard democratic political preferences (Rokeach, 1960; Gilmore, 1969; Kilpatrick et al., 1970).
8. Reliability
The scale underwent four sequential, rigorous iterative revisions (Forms A through E) to maximize psychometric reliability while paring down extraneous or highly idiosyncratic items. Across successive iterations comprising 89 original trial statements, Form E stabilized at 40 items.
Internal consistency metrics for Form E demonstrate strong psychometric robustness across diverse socio-demographic strata:
- College Student Samples: Split-half reliability coefficients (corrected via the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula) and Cronbach’s alpha values among American university undergraduates at Ohio State University and Michigan State University consistently ranged between .70 and .85.
- Cross-National Cohorts: Among English academic cohorts (University College London and Birkbeck College), Form E yielded internal consistency coefficients ranging from .79 to .88.
- Non-Academic and Clinical Populations: In highly stressed or non-traditional adult samples—such as British automotive assembly workers and institutionalized, destitute military veterans at a New York State Veterans Administration domiciliary—internal consistency estimates varied between .68 and .93.
- Test-Retest Stability: Longitudinal test-retest assessments over intervals spanning 1 to 6 months have yielded stability coefficients ranging from .71 to .84, confirming that while the D-Scale is sensitive to extreme life transitions, it primarily indexes an enduring, trait-like cognitive structural orientation.
9. Factor Analysis
Although Milton Rokeach conceived the Dogmatism Scale as a structurally unified, unidimensional measure of general cognitive closedness, subsequent psychometric and factor-analytic investigations have revealed a multidimensional latent structure.
Early Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) conducted by psychometricians throughout the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Troldahl & Powell, 1965; Vacchiano et al., 1969) demonstrated that the 40 items do not collapse cleanly into a single general factor. Instead, orthogonal and oblique rotations typically extract between three and six primary latent factors explaining 35% to 50% of total variance:
- Factor 1: Isolation and Intolerance of Disbelief (12–15% variance): Captures visceral hostility toward dissenting opinions, compartmentalization of opposing perspectives, and relational rejection of individuals holding divergent worldviews (e.g., Items 19, 24, 25, 29, 30).
- Factor 2: Perceived Threat, Loneliness, and Helplessness (8–11% variance): Reflects underlying existential alienation, acute pessimism, and personal inadequacy in an overwhelmingly perilous world (e.g., Items 5, 6, 7, 9).
- Factor 3: Authoritarian Reliance on External Figures (6–9% variance): Measures absolute deference to established institutional leaders, uncritical trust in vetted authorities, and the abdication of personal judgment (e.g., Items 8, 34, 35).
- Factor 4: Future-Oriented Messianism and Cause Dedication (5–8% variance): Indexes instrumental temporal focus, self-sacrifice for grand historical crusades, and disdain for immediate personal happiness (e.g., Items 14, 20, 21, 37, 38).
- Factor 5: Egocentric Self-Aggrandizement (4–6% variance): Taps covert narcissistic fantasies of historical greatness, intellectual superiority, and world-historical impact compensating for internal insecurity (e.g., Items 15, 16, 17, 18).
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) conducted in contemporary re-evaluations has indicated that while a single second-order factor (“General Dogmatism”) accounts for significant covariance among sub-dimensions, strict unidimensional models exhibit substandard fit (e.g., RMSEA > .08, CFI < .85). Consequently, contemporary structural equation modeling methodologies frequently employ higher-order hierarchical models or truncated brief versions (such as Troldahl & Powell’s 20-item short form) to optimize construct validity and structural parsimony.
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The Dogmatism Scale (Form E) is a standardized, self-administered psychological assessment instrument designed to capture cognitive closedness across clinical, industrial, and social research domains.
- Test Type: Self-report structural psychological rating inventory.
- Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire or digitized computer-based survey.
- Number of Items: 40 declarative statements (in its definitive Form E version).
- Response Scale: 6-point forced-choice bipolar rating scale with the neutral zero point omitted to compel cognitive directionality:
- -3: Strongly disagree
- -2: Disagree
- -1: Slightly disagree
- +1: Slightly agree
- +2: Agree
- +3: Strongly agree
- Scoring and Transformation Rules:
- To eliminate negative integers, a linear transformation is applied by adding a universal constant of 4 to each raw item score.
- Following transformation, individual item scores range from 1 (-3 + 4) to 7 (+3 + 4).
- All 40 items are keyed in the direction of high dogmatism; no items are reverse-scored.
- The cumulative scale score is calculated as the sum of all 40 transformed items, yielding a theoretical aggregate score ranging from 40 to 280.
- Elevated total scores signify an increasingly closed, compartmentalized, and authoritarian belief system.
- Administration Parameters: Completion time averages approximately 15 to 25 minutes. No specialized clinical credentials are required for administration, though psychometric competence is essential for interpretative statistical analysis.
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Dogmatism Scale (Form E) was initially introduced in journal publications by Milton Rokeach in 1956 and formally consolidated in its standard 40-item version within his landmark monograph, The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems, published in 1960 by Basic Books.
Under contemporary psychometric and copyright doctrine, the original 40-item text of Form E resides within the academic public domain for non-profit scholarly, educational, and empirical research endeavors. Milton Rokeach explicitly published the complete inventory and scoring rubrics within his 1960 text to encourage widespread empirical dissemination, cross-validation, and replication across international research centers. No licensing royalties or formal permission fees are required for academic investigators utilizing the scale for empirical research. However, formal attribution and scholarly citation of Rokeach’s original 1960 work remain mandatory. Commercial enterprises seeking proprietary software embedding or diagnostic deployment must evaluate fair-use limits and consult appropriate rights holders.
12. References
- Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. Harper & Row.
- Gilmore, S. K. (1969). Personality differences between high and low dogmatism groups of Pentecostal believers. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 8(1), 161–166. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385260
- Hoge, D. R., & Carroll, J. W. (1973). Religiosity and prejudice in northern and southern churches. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 12(2), 181–197. https://doi.org/10.2307/1384888
- Kilpatrick, D. G., Sutker, L. W., & Sutker, P. B. (1970). Dogmatism, religion, and religiosity: A review and re-evaluation. Psychological Reports, 26(1), 15–22. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1970.26.1.15
- Mangis, M. W. (1995). Religious beliefs, dogmatism, and attitudes toward women. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 14(1), 13–25.
- Rokeach, M. (1956). Political and religious dogmatism: An alternative to the authoritarian personality. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(18), 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093726
- Rokeach, M. (1960). The open and closed mind: Investigations into the nature of belief systems and personality systems. Basic Books.
- Strickland, B. R., & Weddell, S. C. (1972). Religious orientation, racial prejudice, and dogmatism: A study of Baptists and Unitarians. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 11(4), 395–400. https://doi.org/10.2307/1384683
- Troldahl, V. C., & Powell, F. A. (1965). A short-form dogmatism scale for use in field studies. Social Forces, 44(2), 211–214. https://doi.org/10.2307/2575440
- Vacchiano, R. B., Strauss, P. S., & Schiffman, D. C. (1969). Personality correlates of dogmatism: A review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 71(4), 261–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027092