In plain English:
In Finland, people with “woke” views on racial issues are opverwhelmingly female. Those who subscribe to these views are more likely to report depression and lower well-being. These views are also less widespread in Finland than media portrayals suggest.
The study also found that people with degrees in STEM fields were unlikely to support “woke” ideologies, while support was the highest among those who majored in social sciences, education, and humanities.
The final metric for classifying “wokeness” was based on these seven theories:
- “If white people have on average a higher level of income than black people, it is because of racism.”
- “University reading lists should include fewer white or European authors.”
- “Microaggressions should be challenged often and actively.”
- “Trans* women who compete with women in sports are not helping women’s rights.” (reverse scored)
- “We don’t need to talk more about the color of people’s skin.”
- “A white person cannot understand how a black person feels equally well as another black person.”
- “A member of a privileged group can adopt features or cultural elements of a less privileged group.” (reverse scored)
Academic Analysis:
The study, “Construction and validation of a scale for assessing critical social justice attitudes,” published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology in 2024, aimed to develop and validate a psychometric scale to measure attitudes related to critical social justice, often colloquially referred to as “wokeness.” Authored by Oskari Lahtinen from the University of Turku, Finland, it involved two large studies with a combined sample of 5,878 participants from Finland.
Objectives
Primary Goal: Construct and validate a reliable and valid scale, named the Critical Social Justice Attitude Scale (CSJAS), to assess attitudes associated with critical social justice, which emphasizes systemic inequalities, intersectionality, and antiracism.
Secondary Goals: Examine the prevalence of these attitudes across populations, their correlations with well-being variables (anxiety, depression, happiness), and their relationship with political orientation.
Methodology:
Study 1:
Sample: 848 participants, including university faculty, students, and non-academic adults in Finland.
Process: Developed an initial pool of 21 candidate items based on critical social justice literature, media discourse, and discussions. Factor analyses reduced this to a 10-item pilot CSJAS.
Focus: Assessed reliability, factor structure, and convergent validity (correlation with a global item asking participants if they agreed with being called “woke”).
Study 2:
Sample: A nationwide sample of 5,030 participants aged 15–84, recruited via Finland’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.
Process: Introduced five new candidate items, refined the scale to a final seven-item CSJAS, and conducted further validation.
Analyses: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA/CFA), reliability tests, and validity assessments (convergent and divergent).
Key Findings:
Scale Development and Psychometric Properties:
The final CSJAS consists of seven items, covering cognitive perceptions of oppression (e.g., “If white people have on average a higher level of income than black people, it is because of racism”) and behavioral willingness to intervene (e.g., “Microaggressions should be challenged often and actively”).
Reliability: High, with Cronbach’s alpha (α = 0.87) and omega (ω = 0.88).
Model Fit: Excellent, with fit indices like CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMR = 0.01.
Validity:
Convergent: Strong correlation with self-reported “wokeness” (80.9% accuracy in predicting self-identified “woke” individuals).
Divergent: Explained variance in “wokeness” beyond political orientation (left–right or liberal–conservative axes), distinguishing CSJAS from general political ideology.
Prevalence of Attitudes:
Overall, the Finnish sample rejected critical social justice propositions.
Gender Differences: Women showed significantly more support (over twice as much) than men, with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.20). Three out of five women responded positively to CSJAS items, compared to one out of seven men.
Support was higher among certain subgroups, like left-wing party supporters and social sciences students, but still relatively low overall.
Well-Being Correlations:
CSJAS scores correlated with higher anxiety, depression, and lower happiness.
However, these correlations were not stronger than those observed with left-wing political orientation alone, suggesting that mental health associations may be tied more to political ideology than critical social justice attitudes specifically.
Other Observations:
The scale performed best among academic subpopulations but was also effective in the general population.
The study noted lower sensitivity for self-described “woke” men, suggesting men and women may interpret “wokeness” differently (e.g., men associated it with specific issues like trans rights or safe spaces).
Implications and Limitations:
The CSJAS is a robust tool for measuring critical social justice attitudes, with potential applications in psychological and sociological research.
The study highlights significant gender differences and suggests that critical social justice attitudes are less prevalent in Finland than media portrayals might imply.
Openly available data (at https://osf.io/pbtjm) supports further research and replication.
Limitations:
Conducted in Finland, so findings may not generalize to other cultural contexts, particularly the U.S., where critical social justice concepts originated.
The scale’s items may not fully capture all dimensions of critical social justice, as only two of the original 21 items focused on behavioral interventions (addressed in a follow-up study with an 11-item version).
Self-selection bias in the newspaper-recruited sample could skew results.
