Vulgarity of the Mass Man As a Predictor Of Defection

To measure the defective aspect of personality that Ortega (The Revolt of the Masses, 1932) terms vulgarity, in association with those whom he called the masses, we developed the Vulgarity Scale in the context of social dilemmas. A 40-item survey was constructed based on Ortega's descriptions of the characteristics of the masses and we administered this in 2 studies, among 200 university students (Study 1) and with 1,000 adults (Study 2). In both studies, factor analysis of the measurements produced subscales on self-closed and arrogant attitudes, which yielded high internal consistency as well as convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, results in Study 2 illustrated that the Vulgarity Scale predicted defection in response to social dilemmas.