Search

Copyright of Ciencia, Cuidado e Saude is the property of Universidade Estadual de Maringa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The survey investigated the problems of social desirability (SD), non-response bias (NRB) and reliability in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Revised (MMPI-2) self-report inventory administered to Brunei student teachers. Bruneians scored higher on all the validity scales than the normative US sample, thereby threatening the internal validity of the study. Of the three validity scales that assess various forms of SD, only the F scale was reliable and its mean score was in the clinical range. In addition, seven of the ten clinical scales had poor reliability. Although Brunei males scored much higher on the K scale than females, both mean scores were below the critical region. Protocols for two respondents with many missing values indicated that the study's external validity was vulnerable to NRB effects. Altogether SD, NRB and low reliability had potential to undermine and depress the overall validity of the MMPI-2 and caution the value of using it 'as is' in Brunei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Journal of Personality brings together 10 original articles addressing the intersection of personality and politics. Articles build on classic traditions in political psychology by presenting both idiographic and nomothetic work on the motivational, cognitive, ideological, attitudinal, and identity correlates of many different aspects of political behavior. This work is used to understand political activism and leadership as well as everyday political behavior. We hope this collection of articles will inspire our readers to explore new investigations in personality and political psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological variations in the scoring and interpretation of the MMPI and their effects on discrimination between borderline and non-borderline personality disordered alcoholics were investigated. Subjects were 49 male and female inpatient alcoholics in an Icelandic psychiatric hospital. Gunderson's Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test were used to diagnose borderline personality disorder and alcoholism, respectively. Scoring and interpretation of the MMPI were varied in terms of the use and non-use of high F-scale profiles, and their impact on the frequency of various code types among borderline and non-borderline personality disordered alcoholics was considered. It was found that such methodological variations do not affect the frequency of some profile types, and, consequently, the discrimination between the diagnostic groups. Studies and coding systems should consider methodological variations in the scoring and interpretation of MMPI profiles and their consequent effects on diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the communicative characteristics of dogmatism and authoritarianism in written messages. The author aims to determine the behaviors that characterize high, medium, and low degrees of authoritarianism. The author notes that the concept of authoritarianism has been operationalized through various scales such as the California F Scale and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale.

Four hundred sixteen undergraduate university students were asked to indicate their knowledge of AIDS and affect toward persons with AIDS and to take the California F-scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950, 1982). Results indicated a significant relationship between authoritarianism and affect toward persons with AIDS, r = .31 (p <.01). Knowledge of AIDS was very slightly related to affect toward persons with AIDS, but it did not moderate the relationship between authoritarianism and affect toward persons with AIDS. The findings are interpreted as having possible implications for health education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adorno et al.'s F Scale is a widely used test in psychological research. To date, most if not all of the validity experiments on the F Scale have been based on attitudes and not behavior. The present experiment was designed to test three of the nine F subscales on the basis of a behavioral criterion. The experiment was carried out in Tel-Aviv, Israel. The results indicate that three F subscales may not be measuring the authoritarian-submissive trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maier and Lavrakas (‘Attitudes Toward Women, Personality Rigidity, and Idealized Physique Preferences in Males,’ Sex Roles, 1984, 11(5/6), 425–433) claim to have shown that males with a rigid personality structure seek an idealized muscular physique. It is pointed out that their measure of rigidity (the F scale) is based on an oversimplified and extensively disconfirmed theory, which is itself intolerant of ambiguity. Continued acceptance of the theory is also therefore intolerant of ambiguity. It is proposed that the correct interpretation of the Maier and Lavrakas findings should have been that it is old-fashioned to idealize a muscular physique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study on the effect of a special program on the level of authoritarianism of subjects with high scores on the California F scale. The subjects were graduate students of education, mostly from developing countries. The design called for measuring gain in two equivalent groups one of which received a specially constructed counter-authoritarian treatment while the other was used as a control group. The method of pooling variances was used for data processing, and the results showed a significant reduction in post-test F scores in the experimental group. The first part of the study is concerned with identifying specific aspects of authoritarianism on the basis of which a counter- authoritarian treatment is developed. The second part is concerned with measuring the effect of this treatment and examining implications for teacher training programs in authoritarian settings. Although this study is concerned with authoritarianism in a Middle Eastern cultural setting, it has relevance to more than its geographic locus. Authoritarianism tends to rise periodically, at least among segments of the population, in Europe and the U.S.

The article presents a review of acquiescence response set in the California F scale. The article states that acquiescence response set does not seem to be present to a degree sufficient to seriously damage the validity of the scale. In using the F scale, original type items should be used, for unless the neutral points of reversed items are in some way taken into account, the validity of the scale is probably jeopardized when reversals are employed. The use of short forms of the F scale should be avoided. A short form greatly increases the chances that the total score will reflect specific item variances rather than common ones, thus seriously compromising the validity of the scale. The Authoritarian Personality was a significant contribution with many implications for major social problems. The F scale, as the operationalization of the main concept of this work, has been neglected because of widespread doubts concerning its validity. If based upon a fear of acquiescence response set, such doubts appear to be unjustified.

The California F Scale was found to correlate positively with a paper-and-pencil measure of propensity to expect people to be thoroughly good or thoroughly bad. As a further explanation of this relationship, Ss in a laboratory situation were given mildly derogatory information about one respected partner and nonderogatory information about another respected partner. Ss who had scored high on the F Scale resisted the mildly derogatory information and continued to rate their 2 partners about equally favorably. Low F Ss lowered their evaluations of the partner about whom mildly derogatory information had been received and gave their 2 partners final ratings which were more unequally favorable than those given by high scorers. Low F Ss also conformed more unequally to the judgments expressed by the 2 partners than did high scorers. These experimental findings are interpreted to reflect the greater reluctance of high scorers to believe that "good people" possess a mixture of good and bad attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that investigates the social perception ability among authoritarian, non-authoritarian, and high agreeing individuals. The study used the F Scale and the Adjective Rating Scale to 237 students at Nassau County, New York. The procedure involved judges who attempt to guess the self description of their partners and the opportunity to interact within other for 15 minutes regarding radio, television, and movies. The results indicated that there is no difference in the ability of authoritarian, non-authoritarian, and high agreeing individuals to estimate the scores of partners on the F Scale or on the Adjective Rating Scale.

The article presents a study which focuses on the question on whether the response of subjects to a complex, multifactorial attitude scale or the F scale can be changed by means of verbal reinforcement. The findings suggest that the verbal reinforcement procedure is capable of showing conceptual changes that change pre-existing relationships between components of the cognitive structure. Verbal reinforcement is indeed effective in changing subjects to a more democratic position on a combination of F Scales. The practical importance of the study to the general area of behavioral change is discussed.

The article presents a study that examines the roles of attitude content and agreement set in attitude items. These items are important to the theoretical formulation of the Authoritarian Personality, items from the F Scale, dogmatism, and antisemitism scales. The study is necessary to an assumption that agreement set is a mechanical process and general, and that high F scores represent authoritarians in any case. The results of the study indicate that for scales derived from the Authoritarian Personality, agreement with originals is attributed to agreement set rather than attitudes favorable to authoritarianism, dogmatism, or anti-Semitism.

The article offers an experimental study examining several causes of trusting behavior, and its relation to the F scale. The section presents informations concerning the relationship between choices in the two positions, trusting or suspicious. It also shows a significant relationship between the subject's game behavior and his score on the F scale. The F scale scores correlated significantly with game behavior; subjects with low scores tended to be trusting and trustworthy while subjects with high scores tended to be suspicious and untrustworthy in their game choices.

The article discusses a study designed to investigate the effects of various degrees of minority-majority conditions on member behavior during the course of group discussions and to ascertain some of the relationships between various aspects of interpersonal perceptions and discussion behavior. The study administered the California F scale to male high school students who were randomly assigned to one of five discussion conditions representing various degrees of group composition. Study findings indicate a linkage between interpersonal perceptions and discussion behavior.

The article discusses a study which evaluated the adequacy of reversed California F scales from the standpoint of equivalence and validity. The subjects used in this investigation were selected from the undergraduate courses in introductory psychology at the State University of Iowa. The study found that relationships between the F scales and scale-checking behavior failed to provide any evidence that the reversed scales are measuring authoritarianism. In addition, no relationship was found between either of the reversed scales and the semantic differential.

The article discusses a study which investigated the relationship between authoritarianism, as measured by the California F scale, and changes in predictions of potential superiority of U.S. versus Russia in the space race following the launching of Sputnik II. The California F scale has been used to forecast differences in initial attitudes or opinions. In the study, a total of 155 undergraduate college students were administered the initial measures. The authors found that the launching of the Sputnik II was effective in changing predictions about U.S. versus Soviet potential space supremacy.

The article investigates the validity of the criticism set against the authoritarian syndrome, or the F scale, on the basis of acquiescence. The authors cited a study by Hyman and Sheatsley which reported that the F scale was measuring variables other than authoritarianism, such as age, socioeconomic status, intelligence and the form in which the items were presented. According to the authors, the study they designed aims to clarify the meaning of observed changes in F scores during four years of a liberal arts college experience as these changes relate to possible artifacts arising from such factors as verbal ability, educational level and response set.

This article presents information on a study that examined the effect of perceived social status upon the relationship between authoritarianism and punitiveness. The California F scale was used to about 800 students in an introductory class in psychology at the University of Colorado. There is a significant difference between the High and Low F groups with respect to personal and nonpersonal extrapunitiveness scores. Results showed that high authoritarians, more often than low authoritarians, have a tendency to respond to low status figures and with displaced hostility to high status figures. The findings also suggest that low authoritarians seem to respond with direct personal hostility independently of the status of the frustrator.

The article discusses a study which examined four studies that found a lack of positive correlations between the California F scale and scales of reversed items. The influence of response set by all four groups of investigators were attributed to the lack of high positive correlations. The study indicate that the acquiescent response set is one component of scores on the F scale but that its importance has been over-emphasized in the four studies using reversed items. The study further elaborates that the distributions of F scale scores are congruent with the supposition that the high scoring subjects are acquiescent.

The article discusses a study which attempted to appraise the effect of some measures, such as the F scale, on previously observed relationships involving authoritarianism and rigidity. The authors argued that since a study by M. Rokeach on generalized mental rigidity as a factor in ethnocentrism, a number of attempts have been made to demonstrate connections between ideological beliefs and personality variables. The authors claimed that such theoretical relationships between ideology and personality are contingent upon the adequacy of the operational measures involved.

The article discusses a study which evaluated acquiescence response-set variance in the F scale measure of authoritarian personality trends by employing reversed wordings of items. The authors found that response-set is an important factor in the F scale which can not easily be corrected by the practice usual in attitude-test construction of employing both positively and negatively worded items. They also found an evidence which seems to indicate in addition that the content component of the F scale is correlated with the acquiescence response set.

The article discusses a study on measuring authoritarianism in Lebanon using the F scale. An analysis of items from the F scale together with items from a scale of H. J. Eysenck which seemed to measure toughmindedness and a political dimension is tackled. The study suggests that there was a general factor running through all of the F scale items. It asserts that the toughminded-tenderminded items were poor measures of the factor. Moreover, the concepts of punitiveness and authoritarian aggression are also discussed.

The article discusses a study designed to test the hypothesis that nonauthoritarians may be merely expressing a stereotype of their own that others are more authoritarian than themselves by extending the procedure of the Scodel-Mussen experiment to a pairing of nonauthoritarians with other nonauthoritarians. The study utilized the California F scale as a measure of authoritarianism, and extended the earlier study by focusing on the perceptions of authoritarians by other authoritarians and nonauthoritarians by other nonauthoritarians.

This article reports two studies on authoritarianism. Data were gathered from samples of New York City and Ohio State University students. The California Fascism (F) scale, measures of political ideology, and measures of general authoritarianism (GA) were administered. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) The concept of a general authoritarian syndrome is supported; (2) The F scale must be considered to be primarily a measure of rightist authoritarianism; (3) There is a positive correlation between GA and conservatism; (4) Authoritarians differ in the content of their opinion and censoring tendencies; (5) There is no relationship between GA and extremity of political ideology; (6) There is no connection between GA and the politically active versus passive dichotomy.

This article cites various research studies on the search for the source of noncognitive variables in meaningful learning and retention. The measures of anxiety were negatively related to the performance on achievement tests but this effect is stronger in girls than boys. Moreover, anxiety seems to have a more debilitating effect on teacher grades than on achievement test scores. The California F Scale scores were found to correlate positively with rapid and rigid stimuli, with loss of discrimination when self judgments were refuted, an it is dependent on external cues from authorities. Furthermore, dogmatism scores to be negatively related to the achievement in a sociology class when the effects of ability and levels of initial knowledge were removed.

The California F Scale and the EPPS were administered to 118 male and 79 female college students. F Scale scores were positively correlated with the EPPS Scales of Order and Abasement, and negatively correlated with the Autonomy, Intraception, and Heterosexuality Scales of the EPPS. For males, the EPPS Dominance Scale was positively related to the F Scale; males differed significantly from females in this respect. The results were highly consistent with theoretical assumptions involved in the concept of authoritarianism and tended to support both the validity of the concept and the validity of the F Scale as a measure of authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the relationship between authoritarianism as a dimension and the use of information for making accurate social judgments. Two outcomes seemed possible. One was that the greater the degree of authoritarianism, the greater the inaccuracy of judgments based on information presented. This hypothesis is predicated on the assumption that authoritarianism, as operationalized through the California F Scale, bears a linear relationship to its correlates. The other was that the correlation between authoritarianism and accuracy of judgments of others is curvilinear. Comparisons between mean estimated California F scores for the high role and the low role were made. The results indicated that within the total subject group as well as within each of the subgroups, the high-role respondent was rated higher in California F than the respondent on the low-role recording. Clearly, the information presented differentiated between the two roles. However, the degree of differentiation varied with the degree of authoritarianism. The results, in general, confirm the hypothesis that the greater the degree of authoritarianism the greater the distortion of attitudinal judgments.

Attitudinal changes regarding child-rearing attitudes, as measured by the Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI), were studied in a group of 14 unmarried, female college students enrolled in a course in Child Psychology. Results confirmed both hypotheses: (a) Changes in child- rearing attitudes were induced by a course in Child Psychology; and (b) the' high authoritarian-high anxiety groups of Ss showed greater changes than the high authoritarian-low anxiety Ss or the low authoritarian-low anxiety Ss. Authoritarianism and anxiety were measured by the California F Scale and the Manifest Anxiety Scale respectively. Differences between the groups also were reported in terms of the 3 PART factors. The implications for the consideration of personality variables in attempts to change attitudes and their influence on the magnitude of changes were indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The F scale, the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, and the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey were administered to 684 college freshmen. Intercorrelation matrices involving these variables plus six factor scores taken from the F scale were obtained for male and female samples separately. These matrices were then factored, and the 10 resulting centroids were rotated by the quartimax method. The data permit the following conclusions. L F scale factors previously identified as Aggression, Projectivity, and Conventionalism show small but meaningful relations to certain scales of the EPPS and GZ. The relationships appear sufficient to warrant the use of these factors as substitutes for the F scale total score. However, such use represents an inadequate substitute for additional scale construction if one wishes to specify the relationship between authoritarianism and other personality variables. 2. The overlap between EPPS and GZ scales is not great. This specificity contains both content and response set components. At the same time, it would appear that responses to these two inventories may be described by fewer than the 25 scale names available. The factors presented provide a vehicle for the reduction of descriptive labels. 3. The factors emerging in male and female samples are quite similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The responses of 704 college freshmen to the 29 item F scale were factor analyzed. The analysis of primary concern utilized computer programs for both extraction and rotation; graphic rotations of factors taken from odd-and even-numbered sub-samples were used to estimate the reliability of the individual factors. While a nearly general factor emerged, the total factor structure clearly indicates that the F scale is multidimensional. This finding is interpreted as support for the contention that the F scale total score must necessarily obscure relationships which hold for subsets of items. Six reasonably stable group factors emerged, one of which was merged with the general. The six factors were named Conventionalism, Cynicism, Aggression, Projectivity, Superstition and Stereotypy, and Good Versus Bad People. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The method of factor analysis was applied to data from a previous study in order to determine the influence of response sets in tests of authoritarianism. The subjects were 88 student nurses. Usual and reversed content forms of the California F scale and the Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) were used. Measures of acquiescence, opposition, and extremes sets were derived from these tests. Response set measures and test measures were intercorrelated and the resulting matrix was factor analyzed. The following factors were extracted: Factor I, an Acquiescence Set factor; Factor II, an Extremes Set factor; Factor III, an Authoritarian factor; Factor IV, Acquiescence factor specific to the F scale. The loadings of the F scale on the factors indicates that about 36 per cent of the variance can be accounted for by the general Authoritarian Factor and about 20 per cent by the primary Acquiescence Factor. The corresponding percentages for PARI Factor A score were 26 and 39. The PARI Factor A score, measuring Authoritarian-Control, loaded negatively on the Extremes Set Factor. The results for the F scale derived from the factor analysis were similar to those obtained using the Chapman-Bock model. The results on the PARI Authoritarian factor were not comparable to those from the Chapman-Bock model. The general conclusion drawn was that while content is an important determiner of response to the F scale its influence is only slightly greater than that of acquiescence. Both acquiescence and extremes sets play an im-portant role in the PARI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A replication of Asch's (2) group influence experiments and a prestige-suggestion experiment was administered to a number of students who had previously taken a version of the California F-scale. No significant relationship was found between F-scale scores and behavior in these experimental situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relation of the F-scale to response set to answer positively. A measure of response set to answer positively was constructed by item analyzing the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory, which is composed of 566 relatively ambiguous items. However, instead of scoring in terms of the conventional method the total number of "true" responses was calculated. No apparent meaning for such a score could be discovered in the literature. The MMPI was scored in this manner for 133 students at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The resulting scores correlated .25 with the F scale (significant at the 1 per cent level). Since previous research had indicated that the F scale tended to correlate significantly with indices of intelligence (2), it was necessary to check the possibility that the total number of items answered true on the MMPI was not serving simply as an additional measure of intelligence. When the "total number of trues" score on the MMPI was related to the Altus Verbal Aptitude Scale, the correlation was .08, which was not significant. In order to shorten the response set measure an item analysis of the MMPI was carried out.

The article focuses on a study, which underlines some of the problems witnessed while applying questionnaires such as the California F scale to measure attitude of distinct social classes in developing countries. The study demonstrates a huge divergence in the response set between different social strata in such a social system. The objective of the study was to illustrate that extreme forms of response set are to be encountered systematically and differentially in those social groups of an underdeveloped society that are distinguished by low education, low income, and low occupational status.

The article discusses the approaches in screening elementary teacher candidates in the U.S. Personal interviewing continues to be the most widely used screening device other than grades and courses, in spite of its unreliability. The 1960 edition of "The Encyclopedia of Educational Research" gives 19 references which attempt to identify one or more personality traits significantly related to teacher success. One study has shown that a negative correlation exist between an individual's Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory score and the California F Scale score, an authoritarian personality measure.

The article presents a study that determines familial relationships of allusive thinking in students and their parents. In this study, 101 Psychology students of Sydney university were volunteered to take part in the investigation. The Object Sorting Test (OST), which provides a measure of the presence of allusive thinking, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) F Scale were used. It has been suggested that high OST scores are associated with evidence schizophrenic pathology. No evidence was found for this suggestion using the MMPI F Scale score and examination performance as evidence of schizophrenic pathology.

The article presents a comment on researcher K. Kelly's article on sexual liberation, old-fashioned outlook and authoritarianism. Systematic and extensive reviews of the evidence for and against the authoritarian personality theory of researchers T.W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D.J. Levinson, and R.N. Sanford generally conclude that the evidence for the theory is very poor. Although high scorers on the Adorno F scale are sometimes found to behave in ways seen as submissive to authority, this is hardly surprising in view of the many admiring statements about authority made in the F scale. It is the less obvious aspects of the theory that constitute its interest, and evidence for other aspects of the theory is hard to find. Considering the amount of testing that the Adorno et al. theory has had, one might expect that the many failures to conform would be seen as fairly damning for the theory. In general, this is what has happened in the area of central concern for the Adorno et at theory, the theory is now hardly mentioned. There are reason; for everything however, and one reason why the Adorno et al. theory may still have adherents is that there are some things that it does seem to get right. In particular, no matter what one does to eliminate methodological problems, the F scale always does seem to predict racism.

Witt shows that scores on the F scale predict negative affect towards AIDS. He interprets this in the tight of the authoritarian personality theory of Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) despite the discredited nature of that theory. An alternative explanation of the findings in the light of the view that the F scale measures primarily an old-fashioned orientation is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which is designed to test the hypothesis in measuring individual differences in openness or closedness of belief systems. Dogmatism scale, a scale that is structurally identical to the F Scale and California F Scale, a scale that is similarly vulnerable to acquiescent response bias were used as major instruments of the study. This study administered and developed about two measures of acquiescent along with Dogmatism and F scale, as well as a measure of verbal intelligence among 40 adults with mental illness. Both acquiescence measures were assessed to have a positive response related to both Dogmatism and F scale while Dogmatism measure is found to contain acquiescent response set variance.

The article discusses a study which investigated ethnocentrism and acquiescent response sets using both the California E scale and F scale. In the study, junior and senior students in high school were given the nine-item E scale, the reversed F scale, and the Gough intolerance scale. The subjects were selected from social studies classes and contained only white, Christian students. According to the authors, study results highlight the need to control item form in studying certain attitude contents like ethnocentrism or authoritarianism.

The article describes a study on social perceptions of authoritarians and nonauthoritarians. A group of 104 undergraduate college students who participated in the study were given a 28-item version of the F-scale. According to the findings, the nonauthoritarians had F-scale scores between 104 and 136, and the nonauthoritarians had F-scale scores between 36 and 61. The study also concluded that for the total group, the difference between the means of the first and second administrations is highly significant.

The article discusses a study designed to test the ability of subjects to fake a prejudiced or unprejudiced picture of themselves on measures in studies of prejudice such as the California F scale and the Prejudice scale. Study subjects are elementary psychology students, who were naive to the tests and who did not belong to minority groups. Findings indicate that no relationship was found between regular prejudice scores and the ability to fake prejudice. Study results imply that both scales are subject to the influence of test-taking attitudes.

The article presents a paper that reports the successful prediction of attitudes toward an international incident on the basis of scores on the California F scale. Some 20 minutes after leaving Miami, Florida, one morning late in July 1961, the pilot of a commercial airplane was forced at gunpoint to alter course and fly to Havana, Cuba, with his crew and 32 passengers. News media reported the hijacking and indicated that a fully armed U.S. Air Force plane had intercepted the hijacked plane and had followed it but had turned back as the commercial plane approached Havana. The evening reports of news media in Miami headlined this story and featured a call by Florida's Senator for U.S. Military forces to be sent into Havana to recover the airplane. At this point it was predicted that persons favorable to this view would score higher on the California F scale than those unfavorable to it. It was hypothesized that an individual's attitude toward authoritarianism would play an important role in shaping his reaction to the recommendation that military force be used.

Central to the California account of authoritarianism was the view that the authoritarian is chronically hostile towards others. In fact component "g" of the F scale is described as measuring "Generalized hostility." As a proposed explanation of the phenomena of German Nazism, authoritarianism to a very considerable extent consisted of an explanation of hostility. The California theory, however, has always been difficult to test because of the problems with their central measuring instrument--the F scale. Two of these problems are its openness to acquiescent response set and its lack of behavioral validity. These problems, however have now been substantially overcome by the emergence of a successful balanced version of the F scale and the emergence of a new scale of authoritarian personality (the "Directiveness" scale) that does predict behavior. The present study retests the California theory using the new scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a short balanced F scale, developed by sociologist J.J. Ray. By following the procedure of sociologists D. Byrne and C. Bounds, Ray has been able to construct a balanced F scale with correlations of up to -.7 between its two halves. With 28 ponderous items, it is, however, a little long for many survey applications. This short scale was administered to an Australia-wide mail sample by a commercial polling organization. The demographic structure of the more than 4000 responses closely reflected that of the Australian population. From this pool, 200 responses were randomly selected for analysis. It is reported that like the full balanced F scale, the short form has some repetitious and contradictory items, but it should be noted that this is also a feature of the original F items used, and the contradictories are psychological rather than exact logical opposites.

Berry and Thomas have claimed that Australians are particularly authoritarian. Both speak as outsiders--one a Canadian and one a New Zealander--who spent some time in Australia. Both studies have already been criticized on methodological grounds. In each case doubts hung over the measuring instruments these authors used. The F scale has a well-known problem with validity and the Wilson Conservatism scale can be described as a measure of authoritarianism only if we are prepared to make the quite tendentious assertion that the two constructs are identical. In this study, authoritarianism was measured by the Ray "Directiveness" scale--a balanced scale in behavior inventory format which gives strong predictions of peer-rated authoritarian behavior. It was used on this occasion in its short form of 14 items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the relationship between Hogan's Survey of Ethical Attitudes and the California F Scale, a measure of antidemocratic tendencies and conservatism, Lorr and Zea investigated whether moral judgment can be interpreted in terms of a liberal-conservative dimension. As Hogan's scale correlated significantly with their conservative-liberal factor, they argued that the two factors are equivalent. However, whether moral judgment merely represents a liberal-conservative dimension is questionable, as Survey scores also correlated with a dogmatism factor. To avoid this difficulty, the present study used an alternate measure based on a cognitive developmental stage, rather than character, model. Moreover, Wilson's Conservatism Scale was considered more appropriate as it (a) does not confound conservatism and dogmatism, (b) is free of social desirability factors, and (c) is applicable within the South African context. Since the typical conservative has been described as conventional, conforming, punitive, authoritarian, and antihedonistic, it was hypothesized that conservatism would be positively correlated with conventional and negatively related to principled moral reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the success of the sports coach. It has been traditionally assumed that the development of successful athletic teams is based on a strict adherence to discipline, organization, and conformance on behalf of players. It examines the success of high school coaches who exhibit an authoritarian personality. The questionnaire used is a 48-item modified F scale-Rokeach Dogmatism Scale devised to measure the degree of authoritarianism exhibited by a given subject. Reliability was established by administering the test again approximately one week later. Directions for correct completion of the test are given during personal interviews, and the subjects takes the test while the administrator is present. The null hypothesis is examined with use of the Mann-Whitney U Test. Under this assumption, the more successful coaches are not expected to be significantly different from the less successful coaches in relation to their authoritarian nature as measured by the modified F Scale-Rokeach Dogmatism Scale.