Compliance Patterns and Communication Blocks in Complex Organizations

It is found that ethnic background, not status inconsistency, determines political attitudes and education, it turns out, is the best predictor of political attitudes.

Abstract

he used whereas other studies have not used this variable. Thus the implication is that ethnic background, not inconsistency, determines political attitudes. With respect to social class, comparisons between the relative ability of social class membership and inconsistency to predict political attitudes quite clearly demonstrate the superiority of social class as a predictor. Whether one uses education, income, or occupation as an indicator of social class membership, the correlation between social class and political attitudes is higher than the correlation between consistency and political attitudes (compare Tables 2, 3, and 4 with Table 1). Education, it turns out, is the best predictor of political attitudes (compare Table 1 and Table 3). When the findings of this study are combined with the results of a recent evaluation of the concept status as an explanation of suicide,18 one is led to ponder whether these concepts are in fact contributing to the accumulation of knowledge in the social sciences. Social class membership and minority group appear to be far superior explanatory concepts. These concepts may be time-worn and they may even smack of Marxism. But if they are in fact the kinds of sociological variables that determine the behavior of men then we should use them. Concepts like consistency, congruency, crystallization, and integration unquestionably have a more sophisticated sound to them. But if we sacrifice substantive usefulness for sophisticated appearance then our contribution to knowledge will be meager indeed.