Orientations towards authority and congruency theory - The cross-national,cross-time evidence

This paper employs the 1981 and 1990 World Values Surveys to demonstrate th at publics in advanced industrial states have become less deferential both in general, as well as in the polity, the family, and the workplace. In add ition, this analysis also provides broad-gauged prime facie support for the claim(Eckstein, 1966, 1969, 1975, 1992; Pateman, 1970; Kohn, 1969; Greenbe rg et al., 1995) that authority orientations across different domains are g eneralizable: attitudes toward authority in the polity, the family, and the workplace do indeed appear to be inter-connected. Furthermore, even under the most rigorous testing conditions, when multiple authority orientations are pitted against each other, and when various other prominent explanation s are introduced, orientations toward authority in one domain turn out to b e useful (i.e., statistically significant) estimates of authority orientati ons in another.