Dogmatism Scale
Also known as: Rokeach D-Scale, Dogmatism Scale Form E, DOG Scale
The Dogmatism Scale, developed by Milton Rokeach (1960), measures dogmatism, the degree to which a person's belief system is closed, rigid, and resistant to change, regardless of its ideological content. Conceived as an ideology-free alternative to the authoritarianism research of the 1950s, it captures closed-mindedness on the left as well as the right, and was later modernized by Altemeyer (2002).
Key highlights
- Measures closed-mindedness independent of ideological content, in principle capturing dogmatism on left and right.
- Historically important as the ideology-free response to The Authoritarian Personality.
- Modern balanced versions (Altemeyer) achieve good reliability and control acquiescence.
- Predicts intolerance, persuasion resistance, and black-and-white thinking across belief domains.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the Dogmatism Scale when you want a content-free measure of closed-mindedness and rigidity that, in principle, applies to extremists of any ideology, complementing content-laden measures like right-wing authoritarianism. It is appropriate for studying resistance to persuasion, intolerance, and cognitive rigidity. Prefer Altemeyer's balanced 20-item version to control the acquiescence bias that plagued the original Form E, and validate against related constructs to demonstrate discriminant validity.
Strengths & limitations
- Measures closed-mindedness independent of ideological content, in principle capturing dogmatism on left and right.
- Historically important as the ideology-free response to The Authoritarian Personality.
- Modern balanced versions (Altemeyer) achieve good reliability and control acquiescence.
- Predicts intolerance, persuasion resistance, and black-and-white thinking across belief domains.
- The original Form E was unbalanced (mostly dogmatic-keyed), inflating scores through acquiescence bias.
- Despite the ideology-free aim, scores empirically correlate with right-wing rather than left-wing extremism.
- Overlaps heavily with related constructs (authoritarianism, need for closure), requiring discriminant validation.
- Some items are dated, and the construct's distinctiveness from general rigidity has been questioned.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
How does dogmatism differ from authoritarianism?
Authoritarianism, as measured by right-wing authoritarianism scales, is content-laden: it concerns submission to established authority, aggression toward sanctioned targets, and conventionalism, and it is tied to the political right. Dogmatism is intended to be content-free, describing a closed, rigid cognitive structure that could in principle appear in any ideology. In practice the two correlate, but dogmatism focuses on how beliefs are held rather than which beliefs.
Why was the original Dogmatism Scale criticized?
Most items in Rokeach's Form E were worded so that agreeing indicated dogmatism. Respondents prone to acquiescence, agreeing regardless of content, therefore scored as dogmatic, confounding the trait with a response style. Altemeyer's balanced revision includes equal numbers of pro- and anti-dogmatism items so that acquiescence cancels out, yielding a cleaner measure of the construct.
Can the scale really capture left-wing dogmatism?
That was Rokeach's aspiration: a closed mind on the far left should score as high as one on the far right. Empirically, however, dogmatism scores tend to correlate more strongly with right-wing extremism, and evidence for symmetric left-wing dogmatism is mixed. The debate over whether closed-mindedness is ideologically symmetric remains active in political psychology.
Sources
- 1.Rokeach, M. (1960). The open and closed mind: Investigations into the nature of belief systems and personality systems. New York: Basic Books.ISBN 9780465052189
- 2.Altemeyer, B. (2002). Dogmatic behavior among students: Testing a new measure of dogmatism. The Journal of Social Psychology, 142(6), 713-721.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Dogmatism Scale. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/political-psychology/dogmatism-scale