Editing Political spectrum (section)

=== Leonard W. Ferguson ===
In 1950, Leonard W. Ferguson analyzed political values using ten scales measuring attitudes toward: [[birth control]], [[capital punishment]], [[censorship]], [[communism]], [[evolution]], [[law]], [[patriotism]], [[theism]], treatment of [[criminals]] and [[war]]. Submitting the results to [[factor analysis]], he was able to identify three factors, which he named [[Religion|religionism]], [[humanitarianism]] and [[nationalism]]. He defined religionism as [[belief in God]] and negative attitudes toward [[evolution]] and [[birth control]]; humanitarianism as being related to attitudes opposing war, capital punishment and harsh [[Criminal justice|treatment of criminals]]; and nationalism as describing variation in opinions on censorship, law, patriotism and communism.

This system was derived empirically, as rather than devising a political model on purely theoretical grounds and testing it, Ferguson's research was exploratory. As a result of this method, care must be taken in the interpretation of Ferguson's three factors, as factor analysis will output an abstract factor whether an objectively real factor exists or not.<ref>SAS(R) 3.11 Users Guide, [http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/stsug/62259/HTML/default/viewer.htm#ugmultfactor.htm Multivariate Analysis: Factor Analysis]</ref> Although replication of the nationalism factor was inconsistent, the finding of religionism and humanitarianism had a number of replications by Ferguson and others.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Ferguson, L.W. |title=The Stability of the Primary Social Attitudes: I. Religionism and Humanitarianism |journal=Journal of Psychology |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=283–8 |year=1941 |doi=10.1080/00223980.1941.9917075 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Kirkpatrick, C. |title=Religion and humanitarianism: a study of institutional implications |journal= Psychological Monographs: General and Applied|volume=63 |issue=9 |pages=i-23 |year=1949 |doi=10.1037/h0093615 }}</ref>