Developing Evolutionary-Based Domain-Specific Loyalty Scales

Presentation Type

Oral and/or Visual Presentation

Presenter Major(s)

Psychology

Mentor Information

Robert Deaner, deanerr@gvsu.edu

Department

Psychology

Location

Kirkhof Center 2201

Start Date

13-4-2011 10:00 AM

End Date

13-4-2011 10:30 AM

Keywords

Social Science

Abstract

Loyalty has been researched in many areas, but little attention has been paid to whether loyalty is a unitary construct or differs across domains. We suggest that loyalty will differ across domains in accordance with the challenges our ancestors faced during their evolutionary history. We test this hypothesis by developing seven psychometric loyalty scales each putatively assessing a different domain and investigating whether there is significant individual variation across them. The proposed domains are loyalty to group, friend, romantic partner, kin, nation, sports team and brand. We found good internal consistency for all seven scales, and factor analysis indicated that the scales were distinct, supporting the hypothesis of distinct loyalty domains. This research illustrates the utility of an evolutionary perspective and should help future studies identify the contextual and dispositional factors contributing to loyalty.

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Apr 13th, 10:00 AM Apr 13th, 10:30 AM

Developing Evolutionary-Based Domain-Specific Loyalty Scales

Kirkhof Center 2201

Loyalty has been researched in many areas, but little attention has been paid to whether loyalty is a unitary construct or differs across domains. We suggest that loyalty will differ across domains in accordance with the challenges our ancestors faced during their evolutionary history. We test this hypothesis by developing seven psychometric loyalty scales each putatively assessing a different domain and investigating whether there is significant individual variation across them. The proposed domains are loyalty to group, friend, romantic partner, kin, nation, sports team and brand. We found good internal consistency for all seven scales, and factor analysis indicated that the scales were distinct, supporting the hypothesis of distinct loyalty domains. This research illustrates the utility of an evolutionary perspective and should help future studies identify the contextual and dispositional factors contributing to loyalty.