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Relationship of Patriotism Measures to Critical Thinking and Emphasis on Civil Liberties versus National Security
Author(s) -
Williams Robert L.,
Foster Lisa N.,
Krohn Katherine R.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2008.00165.x
Subject(s) - patriotism , civil liberties , constructive , national security , emphasis (telecommunications) , law , political science , sociology , psychology , engineering , politics , process (computing) , computer science , electrical engineering , operating system
Students in a large undergraduate course (N = 236) at a major state university in the Southeastern United States took a standardized critical thinking test and four short sociopolitical scales (constructive patriotism, blind patriotism, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security) at the beginning of the fall semester 2007. Although numerous published studies have addressed relationships between types of patriotism and various sociopolitical variables, these studies typically have not targeted respect for civil liberties and emphasis on national security. Also, negligible attention has been given to the relationships between types of patriotism and cognitive variables (e.g., critical thinking, problem solving). The current study found that both constructive and blind patriotism were significantly related to measures of critical thinking, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security but in opposing directions. The article concludes with implications of the findings for public policy and practice.