Dogmatism Scale (DS)

Abstract

The Dogmatism Scale (Form E; RDS-E), developed by social psychologist Milton Rokeach in 1960, is an established 40-item self-report psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate individual differences in open- and closed-mindedness. Diverging sharply from contemporary measures of political authoritarianism—most notably the California F-Scale developed by Adorno and colleagues—the Dogmatism Scale was formulated to measure the cognitive structure and formal organization of personal belief-disbelief systems rather than their specific ideological content. Operating across a theoretical continuum spanning from extreme open-mindedness to closed dogmatism, the instrument conceptualizes high dogmatism through cognitive rigidity, pervasive reliance on authority figures, pronounced intolerance toward contradictory viewpoints, an alienated or threatening view of the social milieu, and a selective, future-oriented temporal perspective. The scale utilizes a 6-point forced-choice agreement format (classically transformed mathematically to a 1 to 7 metric) devoid of a neutral midpoint. Psychometric evaluations across several decades have demonstrated solid internal consistency (with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and Spearman-Brown split-half estimates typically ranging between .70 and .85) and adequate test-retest reliability across multi-month intervals (.70 to .84). Factor analytic inquiries have demonstrated both a strong general factor reflecting closed cognitive organization and distinct secondary dimensions representing authoritarian submission, existential alienation, and ideological intolerance. This article presents a thorough psychometric review of the Dogmatism Scale Form E, examining its theoretical architecture, psychometric validation data, structural properties, scoring methodology, and complete authentic questionnaire items.

Keywords

Dogmatism Scale, Form E, Milton Rokeach, open and closed mind, cognitive style, authoritarianism, belief-disbelief systems, cognitive rigidity, psychometrics, ideological intolerance, epistemic cognition

Authors

The Dogmatism Scale was conceived, operationalized, and validated by Milton Rokeach (1918–1988), a distinguished Polish-American social psychologist whose pioneering contributions revolutionized the empirical study of personal values, cognitive belief systems, and social attitudes. Rokeach completed his doctoral studies in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1947, where he worked in close proximity to the research climate surrounding The Authoritarian Personality project.

Throughout the formulation and ultimate publication of the Dogmatism Scale (culminating in his 1960 landmark volume The Open and Closed Mind), Rokeach served on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. Later in his career, he held professorial appointments at Washington State University and the University of Southern California. Rokeach was honored with numerous academic distinctions, including the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). While historical inquiries regarding the scale are anchored in his original university archives, academic usage is coordinated through historical literature and standard institutional repositories across psychological sciences.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Dogmatism Scale (Form E) is the standardized assessment of generalized cognitive closed-mindedness, characterized as the extent to which a person’s belief system is closed to novel information, alternative conceptual paradigms, and discordant objective evidence. Rokeach formulated the instrument in direct response to what he perceived as profound theoretical and psychometric limitations inherent in the prevailing measurement instruments of the 1950s, specifically the California F-Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950).

While the F-Scale was intended to capture anti-democratic tendencies and authoritarianism, its operationalization was deeply entangled with right-wing political extremism, conservative traditionalism, and explicit ethnocentric prejudices. Consequently, individuals exhibiting extreme left-wing authoritarianism, rigid religious orthodoxies of any orientation, or dogmatic commitments to scientific or philosophical systems frequently scored in the “non-authoritarian” direction on the F-Scale. Rokeach hypothesized that dogmatism is a structural property of cognitive architecture—a generalized cognitive style—independent of ideological content. Form E was engineered to quantify:

• The degree of structural closure and psychological isolation separating beliefs from disbeliefs.
• The extent to which authority figures are vested with absolute credibility and moral infallibility.
• An individual’s vulnerability to psychological threat, alienation, and perceived existential insecurity.
• The presence of rigid, dichotomous patterns in information processing, category differentiation, and social judgment.

In research contexts, the Dogmatism Scale serves as an indispensable tool in social, political, and cognitive psychology for investigating resistance to persuasion, selective exposure to media, interpersonal conflict, prejudice, and problem-solving flexibility under cognitive strain. In organizational and educational contexts, the scale is deployed to evaluate epistemic maturity, cognitive flexibility among prospective decision-makers, and adaptability to complex, ambiguous socio-environmental demands.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the Dogmatism Scale is the Open and Closed Mind, operationalized through the structural properties of an individual’s belief-disbelief system. Rokeach conceptualized a belief-disbelief system as an organized cognitive framework comprising everything a person accepts as true (beliefs), set against complementary categories of alternate conceptualizations that the person rejects (disbeliefs). Dogmatism represents the structural extreme of closure within this system, spanning five core interrelated dimensions:

1. Isolation and Differentiation within the Belief-Disbelief System

A closed mind is characterized by high compartmentalization and isolation among sub-beliefs. Contradictory beliefs may coexist within the individual without conscious tension because psychological barriers prevent them from interacting (e.g., Item 14: “A group which tolerates too much difference of opinion among its own members cannot exist for long”). Furthermore, high dogmatism entails poor differentiation within the disbelief subsystem; all non-believers, competing ideologies, or alternative frameworks are collapsed into a single, undifferentiated out-group (e.g., Item 26: “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are on the side of truth and those who are against it”).

2. Central-Intermediate-Peripheral Dimensions

The belief system is organized hierarchically across three concentric strata:

• The Central Region: Foundational, primitive assumptions regarding the physical and social universe. Closed minds perceive the world as fundamentally hostile, unpredictable, and dangerous (e.g., Item 33: “Fundamentally, the world we live in is a pretty lonely place”; Item 27: “Man on his own is a helpless and miserable creature”).
• The Intermediate Region: Beliefs regarding the nature of positive and negative authority. Dogmatic cognitive systems rely disproportionately on external authority for cognitive validation and personal problem-solving (e.g., Item 10: “In this complicated world of ours the only way we can know what is going on is to rely upon leaders or experts who can be trusted”).
• The Peripheral Region: Specific derived beliefs regarding policies, decisions, and lifestyle choices, which emanate directly from central authority rather than autonomous empirical reality testing.

3. Time-Perspective Orientation

Closed belief systems systematically undervalue the empirical present in favor of a fixation on the future or an idealized past (e.g., Item 31: “The present is all too often full of unhappiness. It is the future that counts”). The future is conceptualized teleologically or millenarian-style, often tied to a single, all-encompassing ideological struggle that justifies personal self-abnegation (e.g., Item 9: “It is when a person devotes him/herself to an ideal or cause that his/her life becomes meaningful”).

4. Personal Feelings of Inadequacy, Threat, and Alienation

Beneath ideological rigidity lies a persistent undercurrent of existential anxiety, personal inadequacy, and perceived vulnerability. Closed belief systems operate defensively, shielding the ego against pervasive feelings of threat through compensatory grandiosity, self-righteousness, and uncompromising adherence to collective causes (e.g., Item 16: “While I don’t like to admit this even to myself, I sometimes have the ambition to become a great man, like Einstein, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare”; Item 13: “It is better to be a dead hero than a live coward”).

5. Ideological Intolerance and Interpersonal Rejection

High dogmatism manifests in a structural inability to distinguish between the substantive content of an idea and the individual holding it. Disagreement on intellectual or moral grounds is rapidly transmuted into personal condemnation and moral outrage (e.g., Item 11: “There are a number of persons I have come to hate because of the things they stand for”; Item 39: “My blood boils whenever a person stubbornly refuses to admit he’s wrong”).

Theoretical Framework

The Dogmatism Scale is anchored within cognitive psychology and Lewinian field theory, synthesized with psychoanalytic theories of ego defense. Rokeach departed from the psychoanalytic drive-reduction models popular in post-war social psychology by conceptualizing the human organism as an actively organizing, meaning-seeking epistemic system driven by two concurrent, conflicting motives:

1. The Need to Know: An intrinsic drive to understand, cognitively master, and represent empirical reality as accurately and comprehensively as possible.
2. The Need to Ward Off Threat: A defensive drive to insulate the self against anxiety, psychological ambiguity, and cognitive dissonance.

In Rokeach’s framework, the relative dominance of these two motivational engines determines the openness or closure of the cognitive system. When threat appraisal is low, the cognitive apparatus organizes information along an open trajectory: incoming stimuli are evaluated on their intrinsic merits, external authorities are assessed critically, and belief systems demonstrate high permeability, internal integration, and revision in response to novel empirical evidence.

Conversely, when an individual experiences chronic internal or environmental threat, the defensive motive supersedes epistemic accuracy. The resulting closed cognitive architecture defends the ego against catastrophic anxiety by erecting rigid boundaries around beliefs, delegating interpretive responsibility entirely to trusted authorities, and filtering out discordant feedback. Rokeach formalized this distinction as the separation of cognitive syntax (the formal rules of structural organization) from cognitive semantics (the specific socio-political or religious content of thought). A person can be dogmatic about psychoanalysis, behaviorism, atheism, Catholicism, communism, or laissez-faire capitalism; the underlying cognitive grammar remains functionally identical.

Validity

Extensive empirical investigations spanning several decades provide substantial evidence supporting the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the Dogmatism Scale Form E.

Construct and Experimental Validity

Rokeach demonstrated construct validity through innovative laboratory problem-solving experiments, most famously utilizing the “Joe Doodlebug Problem” (a complex, non-linear reasoning task requiring participants to overcome embedded cognitive assumptions about physical movement). Highly dogmatic individuals (identified via Form E) took significantly longer to synthesize novel, counterintuitive principles and required substantially more time to abandon dysfunctional mental sets compared to low-dogmatism counterparts, even when controlled for intelligence. Subsequent cognitive experiments have consistently demonstrated that high scorers exhibit greater confirmation bias, struggle with perceptual re-structuring, and exhibit marked deficits in cognitive flexibility during complex deduction tasks.

Convergent Validity

The scale demonstrates robust, statistically significant positive correlations with related constructs of cognitive rigidity and authoritarianism. Across diverse cohorts, RDS-E scores correlate moderately to strongly with:

• The California F-Scale: Pearson correlation coefficients typically range between r = .50 and .75, reflecting shared structural variances regarding deference to authority and rigid thinking, while remaining distinct due to the F-Scale’s heavy ideological loading (Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969).
• Intolerance of Ambiguity: Assessed via the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale, correlations generally range from r = .40 to .60.
• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA): Altemeyer (1988) and subsequent investigators documented correlations ranging between r = .45 and .68.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, the Dogmatism Scale demonstrates clear empirical divergence from general cognitive intelligence (IQ). Studies assessing cognitive ability via instruments such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) or Wonderlic Personnel Test report negligible to weak inverse correlations (typically ranging from r = -.05 to -.22), demonstrating that dogmatic closure is a distinct structural cognitive style rather than a manifestation of intellectual deficiency. Furthermore, unlike the California F-Scale, the RDS-E has been shown across multiple international samples (e.g., Rokeach, 1960; Gulo & Lynch, 1973) to identify closed-minded cognitive structures among political leftists and secularists at frequencies comparable to conservative and religiously orthodox cohorts, verifying its content-neutral operationalization.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

The scale reliably predicts behavioral outcomes in interpersonal and socio-political domains. High scorers systematically reject ideologically discordant peers, show heightened selective avoidance of counter-attitudinal literature, exhibit higher hostility during intergroup discourse, and show marked difficulty in integrating newly learned contradictory evidence during negotiation paradigms.

Reliability

The psychometric stability of the Dogmatism Scale Form E has been documented across dozens of clinical, collegiate, and community populations. Initial investigations by Rokeach (1960) reported internal consistency estimates using odd-even split-half reliability coefficients corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula ranging from .68 to .93 across distinct samples:

• English collegiate samples: r = .78 to .81
• American collegiate cohorts: r = .70 to .91
• General adult community cohorts: r = .72 to .85

Subsequent psychometric reviews (notably Vacchiano, Strauss, & Hochman, 1969) reviewing over 100 published investigations confirmed that the internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of Form E predominantly stabilizes between α = .70 and α = .85. While these values satisfy standard psychometric criteria for group-level research, the broad, heterogeneous domain sampling of the 40 items tends to suppress internal consistency relative to more narrowly focused unidimensional constructs.

Test-retest reliability evaluations demonstrate strong temporal stability over short- and mid-range intervals. Rokeach (1960) established test-retest coefficients of approximately r = .70 over a multi-month period. Later replications (e.g., Gulo & Lynch, 1973; Price, 2000) reported stability coefficients ranging from r = .71 to .84 across intervals spanning four to twenty weeks, confirming that the scale captures an enduring cognitive-personality trait rather than transient state-dependent fluctuations.

Factor Analysis

Although Milton Rokeach conceptualized dogmatism as a structurally unified, unidimensional construct, extensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have revealed that Form E possesses a multidimensional latent structure.

Exploratory Factor Solutions

Seminal factor-analytic investigations by Kerlinger and Rokeach (1966), Troldahl and Powell (1965), and Vacchiano, Strauss, and Schiffman (1968) systematically extracted between 3 and 14 primary factors, with the most robust models converging around four or five prominent, replicable dimensions:

1. Isolation and Existential Alienation: Items loading on feelings of loneliness, helplessness, and the hostility of the human condition (e.g., Items 27, 33, 38; factor loadings ranging from .42 to .68).
2. Ideological Intolerance and Rejection: Items capturing moralistic outrage, dichotomous views of truth, and contempt for individuals with opposing beliefs (e.g., Items 11, 26, 39, 40; factor loadings ranging from .40 to .65).
3. Authoritarian Reliance and Subservience: Items measuring cognitive dependency on trusted experts, leaders, and institutional dogmas (e.g., Items 7, 10, 34; factor loadings ranging from .38 to .62).
4. Sacrifice for a Great Cause (Future Orientation): Items reflecting martyrdom, self-abnegation, and teleological fixation on the future (e.g., Items 6, 9, 13, 31; factor loadings ranging from .35 to .58).
5. Defensive Self-Aggrandizement: Items tapping secret ambitions of greatness and compensations for internal inadequacy (e.g., Items 16, 18, 22).

Confirmatory Perspectives and Unidimensional Validity

Modern confirmatory investigations indicate that while a strict first-order unidimensional model yields borderline goodness-of-fit indices (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] < .85, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] > .08), a hierarchical second-order model (wherein a generalized higher-order Dogmatism construct accounts for the covariance among the distinct first-order cognitive factors) demonstrates acceptable fit indices (CFI ≈ .90, TLI ≈ .89, RMSEA ≈ .055). This empirical convergence justifies the continued conventional scoring practice of computing an omnibus total score as a composite index of structural closed-mindedness.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Dogmatism Scale, Form E (RDS-E)
• Author: Milton Rokeach (1960)
• Instrument Nature: Standardized self-report psychometric rating scale
• Construct Evaluated: Structural closed-mindedness / generalized dogmatism
• Total Number of Items: 40 items
• Estimated Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (typically ages 16 and older); widely applied across academic, social, political, and clinical contexts
• Standard Response Format (Classically Scored): 6-point forced-choice agreement scale devoid of a neutral zero point:
  • +1: I agree a little
  • +2: I agree on the whole
  • +3: I agree very much
  • -1: I disagree a little
  • -2: I disagree on the whole
  • -3: I disagree very much
• Alternative 7-Point Likert Format (Widely Utilized in Survey Research):
  • 1 = Strongly agree
  • 2 = Agree
  • 3 = Slightly agree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Slightly disagree
  • 6 = Disagree
  • 7 = Strongly disagree
• Scoring and Transformation Protocols:
  • In Rokeach’s original scoring methodology, all 40 items are keyed entirely in the positive direction (dogmatic agreement). To eliminate negative numbers, a constant value of +4 is added to each response: -3 becomes 1; -2 becomes 2; -1 becomes 3; +1 becomes 5; +2 becomes 6; +3 becomes 7. (The neutral score 4 is bypassed or assigned to omitted items).
  • When using the 1 to 7 Likert scale presented in modern survey tools, reverse coding is applied where necessary so that higher composite numerical scores consistently denote greater dogmatism (e.g., recoding 1 to 7 if 1 originally stood for “Strongly agree”).
  • Total scale scores range mathematically from 40 to 280 points. Higher aggregate scores indicate greater structural closed-mindedness, heightened reliance on authority, increased cognitive rigidity, and pervasive intolerance of ambiguity.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Dogmatism Scale (Form E) was formally released in 1960 with the publication of Milton Rokeach’s foundational monograph, The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems, published by Basic Books. The copyright for the seminal text is held by the estate of Milton Rokeach and Basic Books (HarperCollins). However, consistent with traditional mid-20th-century psychometric instruments published in full within academic research monographs, the scale has long resided in the public scientific domain for non-commercial academic research and instructional applications.

No licensing fee, commercial certification, or proprietary royalties are required for individual scholars, university researchers, or students administering the scale for non-commercial psychometric research, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to Milton Rokeach (1960). Commercial deployments, inclusion in proprietary commercial software suites, or modifications for profit-yielding evaluation tools require express formal licensing and permission from the copyright holders.

References

• Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. Harper & Brothers.
• Altemeyer, B. (1988). Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism. Jossey-Bass.
• Dileo, B. G. (1967). Scores on Rokeach’s Dogmatism Scale and the response set to present a positive social and personal image. The Journal of Social Psychology, 71(2), 287–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1967.9922307
• Gulo, E. V., & Lynch, M. D. (1973). Evidence on the validity of the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale (DS) Form E. College Student Journal, 7(3), 62–67.
• Kerlinger, F., & Rokeach, M. (1966). The factor analytic approach to the study of the F-scale and the Dogmatism Scale. Psychological Bulletin, 65(6), 391–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023348
• Price, F. S. L. (2000). Intercultural contact, ethnocentrism and the mediating role of epistemology (Doctoral dissertation, University of Melbourne). University of Melbourne Repository. http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/284376/1/azu_td_5906119_sip1_m.pdf
• Rokeach, M. (1960). The open and closed mind: Investigations into the nature of belief systems and personality systems. Basic Books.
• 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/10.2307/2575024
• Vacchiano, R. B., Strauss, P. S., & Hochman, L. (1969). The open and closed mind: A review of dogmatism. Psychological Bulletin, 71(4), 261–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027083
• Vacchiano, R. B., Strauss, P. S., & Schiffman, D. C. (1968). Multiple factor analysis of the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 28(4), 1083–1090. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446802800407

Items of the Scale