Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
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also been argued that before this sacrificial behaviour (i.e. altruism) could evolve by 
promoting genotypical replication, it had to be accompanied by something altogether 
less benign. According to this theory, we have also evolved an innate ’neophobia’ 
(to stick with Pareto’s term) to complement our altruism. This works on both a 
conscious and an unconscious level to encourage us to make selections, using the 
criterion of evidence of genetic closeness, concerning to whom and to what extent we 
should ration our helping behaviours. One of the major proponents of this theory is 
J. P. Rushton, who has observed that ‘xenophobia may represent a dark side of human 
altruism’ (Rushton 1997, 1). So far, therefore, the selfish interests of gene replication 
appear to provide us with what could be a rather unpleasant psychological reality 
underlying Pareto’s ‘residues of sociality’.
Various research findings can be drawn together to support and develop this idea. 
The following evidence will try to suggest that Pareto was not only right to link 
‘neophobia’ and ‘altruism’; he also displayed considerable astuteness by linking 
these things in turn to his (conservative) class II residues. One important thread 
connecting altruism, neophobia, and indeed conservatism, it will now be argued, 
is that they can all be understood as phenomena which intensify together under 
conditions of environmental threat.
Firstly, it is important to establish that biases in altruistic behaviours towards 
genetically similar individuals are now known to strengthen and weaken together 
in general populations with variation in the extent to which the environment is 
perceived to contain threat. Evidence showing that individuals are inclined to help 
kin more than non-kin, and that this favouritism becomes stronger in ‘emergency as 
opposed to nonemergency situations’ is provided by Form and Nosow (1958) and by 
Burnstein, Crandall and Kitamaya (1994).
3
There is compelling evidence indicating, moreover, that levels of ‘conservatism’ 
and ‘authoritarianism’ are also likely to vary directly with levels of environmental 
threat. Katz (1992) has shown that levels of conservatism – as measured by Glenn 
Wilson’s widely used index of general conservatism, the (1968) Conservatism scale 
– increased significantly in both Arab and Jewish populations during the first Gulf 
war. And as Simonton (in Pervin (ed.) 1990, 672–673) has pointed out, several 
studies indicate that individual tendencies towards ‘authoritarianism’ are likely to 
intensify ‘when a person confronts severe threat’. One such study undertaken by 
Sales (1972) indicates that threats to economic well-being must be included here. He 
found that economic ups and downs appear to affect the extent to which individuals 
are inclined to convert to authoritarian as opposed to non-authoritarian churches 
(authoritarian churches being those which ‘enforce absolute obedience to doctrine 
and prescription’). A follow up study (Sales 1973) later suggested that the U.S. 
depression of the 1930s influenced popular tastes in ways which highlighted this 
relationship between economic austerity and authoritarian attitude syndrome very 
clearly. He found, for example, that ‘comic strip characters exhibited more power 
and toughness; magazine articles became more cynical; books on superstitious topics 
(e.g. astrology) saw improved sales; interest in psychology and psychoanalysis 
3  These citations are mentioned by Buss and Kenrick (in Gilbert, Fiske and Linzey (ed.) 
1998, 983).

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Pareto’s Psychology
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declined (anti-intraception); and punishment for sex crimes became more harsh’ 
(Simonton in Pervin (ed.) 1990, 673).
Simonton mentions further studies which reaffirm Sales’ conclusion. Of particular 
interest are several listed as demonstrating that ‘political crises and violence may 
motivate momentary drops in levels of integrative complexity in the thoughts of both 
leaders and followers’ (Simonton in Pervin (ed.) 1990, 675). As we will see in the 
following section, low levels of integratively complex thinking are very much a part 
of the conservative-authoritarian psychological profile, so it is not at all surprising 
that these drops should occur under threat as global conservatism-authoritarianism 
intensifies. Indeed, much the same can be said of Marcus et al.’s (1995, 101–113) 
finding that higher levels of threat prompt individuals to become less tolerant of 
civil liberties. More recently, Duckitt and Fisher (2003) have cited several studies 
including their own which uphold the notion that increased social threat (which they 
say we must distinguish from personal threat) causes heightened authoritarianism. 
They stress these findings’ consistency with Duckitt’s model of authoritarianism 
which they describe as consisting of ideological attitudes which ‘express the 
motivational goal of social control and security, activated by a view of the world as 
dangerous and threatening’. At the very least, therefore, these findings combine to 
suggest that the experience of social threat (that is, threat which we must ideologise 
because it does not present itself wholly within the immediate physical environment) 
prompts us to think about others stereotypically. This leads us to see members of 
groups where once we saw individuals, and to divide these groups between ‘friend’ 
and ‘foe’ categories. Whether these psychological re-orientations occur as part of an 
unconscious process which has evolved by advantaging genotypical replication is a 
question which must remain open.
To conclude this list of evidence, it is worth also considering Schachter’s (1959) 
classic study of ‘affiliation under anxiety’ which has confirmed the intuitively 
rather obvious point that individuals facing common threats develop strong positive 
identifications with one another which endure long after these threats have passed. 
Most significantly for present purposes, Schachter’s research supports the claim 
that conservative individuals are especially likely to affiliate under anxiety. He 
had set out to test Adler’s birth order theory which holds that first-born children 
will tend to be more conservative and socially oriented than later-born children. 
His tests involved informing some experimental subjects in a waiting room that 
they would soon be exposed to electric shock as part of a test procedure, and then 
comparing their behaviour patterns with those of control groups who received no 
such information. Subjects who had been forewarned of electric shock, Schachter 
found, were significantly more likely than controls to await what they perceived to 
be their forthcoming ordeals in the company of others rather than by themselves. 
Hence, Schachter had evidence of an affiliation effect. Schachter also found that 
81% of first-born children who had been forewarned chose to wait with others, while 
only 31 % of the later-born children who had been forewarned opted to do the same. 
This latter finding does therefore give some indication that this affiliation effect may 
be stronger amongst conservatives – provided we accept that Adler and more recent 
birth order theorists are correct that first-borns tend to be more conservative than 
latter-borns.    

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