No More Learning

27. There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel
a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents.
34? Most of our social problems would be solved if we could some- how get rid of the immoral, crook~d, and feebleminded people. 37? If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be
better off.
39? Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be
severely punished.
? 2 56 d.
THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded.
9? When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
31? Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private.
e.
41. The businessman and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.
Superstition and Stereotypy: The belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories.
4? Science has its place, but there are many important things that
can never possibly be understood by the human mind.
8. Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural
power whose decisions he obeys without question.
x6. Some people are born with an urge to jump from high places.
v{. If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be \. /"- better off.
, . ;26.
People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the
V
f.
strong.
29. Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain
a lot of things.
33? Wars and social troubles may someday be ended by an earth-
quake or flood that will destroy the whole world.
Power and "Toughness": Preoccupation with the dominance-submis- sion, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness.
2. No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough will power.
13? What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged deter- mination, and the will to work and fight for family and country.
V/~38.
19. 22.
2 3?
26.
An insult to our honor should always be punished.
It is best to use some prewar authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos.
What this country needs most, more than laws and political pro- grams, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith.
People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong.
Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.
g. Destructiveness and Cynicism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human.
6. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict.
43? Familiarity breeds contempt.
? MEASUREMENT OF ANTIDEMOCRA TIC TRENDS 2 57
h. Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emo- tional impulses.
18.
31.
Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around and mix together so much, a person has to protect himself es- pecially carefully against catching an infection or disease from them.
Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that
should remain personal and private.
33? Wars and social troubles may someday be ended by an earth-
quake or flood that will destroy the whole world.
35? The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame com- pared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places
where people might least expect it. ?
38. Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by
plots hatched in secret places.
than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly
whipped, or worse.
35? The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame com-
pared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places
where people might least expect it.
39? Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be
severely punished.
too strong. The item was taken from an editorial in a prominent picture magazine, where it had appeared in a context of political reaction. It seemed well adapted to bring out the sado-masochistic theme believed to be prom- inent in the personality of the high scorer: he believes that he has suffered and, therefore, knows the important things and that those who have not suc- ceeded in raising their status, i. e. , the underprivileged, should suffer more if they hope to improve their lot. The item did not work very well, its rank in order of goodness for men being 29. (Its D. P . , 1. 70, is still significant at the 5 per cent level, however. ) It seems that this was partly because many subjects thought it unreasonable (the mean was 2. 54), and partly because, where it was agreed with, it probably appealed to different subjects for dif- ferent reasons: if it tapped the deep-lying sado-masochistic structures in some high scorers, it also appealed to the surface masochism, and perhaps to the intraceptiveness, of some low scorers.
The final F items, grouped according to the variables to which they per- tain, are presented in Table 7 (VII).
Reliability of the scale, mean score per item, S. D. , and range for each of the fourteen groups (total N = 1518) taking Form 40 and/or 45 are given in Table 8 (VII). The average of the reliability coefficients is . 90, their range . 81 to ? 97? Not only is there a slight improvement in reliability over Form 6o
Exaggerated concern with sexual "goings-on. "
i. Sex:
,/t). Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more
(av. r = . 87) and a very marked improvement over the original Form 78
? Fora 40:
Mean
3. 51 4. 08 3. 69 3. 62 4. 19 3. 86 3. 68 3. 49
3. 76
3. 62 4. 73 3. 69 3. 82
3. 96
California Service Club Men Middle-Class Men Middle-Class Women Working-Class Men Working-Class Women
Los Angeles Men Los Angeles Women
63 ? 94
69 . 92 154 . 93 61 ? 88 53 ? 97 117 . 92 130 . 91
THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY TABLE 8 (VII)
RELIABILITY OF THE F
SCALE (FORMS 40 AND 45)
Group N Reliability
S. D.
? 90 1. 03 1. 22 1. 26 1. 18 1. 67 1. 17 1. 13
1. 20
? 99
. 86 1. 30 1. 01
1. 04
3. 74
4. 06 ? 77
3. 90 ? 90
3. 84 1. 10
Range
1. 2- 5. 4 1. 8- 7. 0 1. 3- 6. 7 1. 1- 6. 7 1. 8 - 6. 9 1. 3- 6. 6 1. 1- 6. 0 1. 2-5. 8
1. 3-6. 4.
1. 3-5. 9 2. 0- 6. 8 1. 0-6. 3 1. 7-5. 9
1. 5-6. 2
1. 2-5. 8 1. 6 - 6. 1
1. 4-5. 9
1. 4- 6. 3
George Washington Univ. Women 132 . 84
Meana 779 ? 91
Fora 45:
Testing Class Women
San Quentin Men Prisoners Psychiatric Clinic Womenb Psychiatric Clinic Menb
59 . 89 110 ? 87 71 . 94 50 . 89
Mean 290 ? 90
Fora 40 and Fora 45:
Employment Service Men Veterans
Maritime School Men
Over-all mean
106 . 89 343 ? 81
449 . 85
1518 . 90
1. 04
aln obtaining the combined group means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.
boue to a substitution of fOrms, the F scale for the Psychiatric Clinic subjects contained only 28 items.
(av. r = .
74), but the scale has now been developed to a point where it meets rigorous statistical requirements. A reliability of . 90 may be interpreted to mean that the scale can place individuals along a dimension-in this case a broad and complex dimension-with a small margin of error. In other words, the score attained by an individual can be relied upon in the sense that chance errors of measurement have been minimized, so that in a repetition of the scale, at a time when political-socioeconomic conditions were generally the
? MEASUREMENT OF ANTIDEMOCRA TIC TRENDS
same as before, his new score would either be the same as his first or fall within narrow limits above or below it. The degree of reliability attained here is within the range which characterizes acceptable intelligence tests.
The means, though they vary from one group to another (a matter to be discussed later), are fairly close, on the whole, to the neural point. As is to be expected from administration of the scale to a great variety of subjects, the range and the S. D. are greater than in previous forms. While no distri- bution curves have actually been made, the scatter diagrams indicate that they would be fairly normal in form (symmetrical but slightly platykurtic). a. INTERNAL CoNsiSTENCY. The Discriminatory Powers of the scale items, as shown in Table 9 (VII), are considerably higher on the average (2. 85) than in the case of Form 6o (2. 15). All of the items differentiate significantly between the high and the low quartiles. It is to be noted that numerous items taken over without change from Form 6o work much better here than in that instance. This is probably due in part to the fact that the diverse groups given Form 45-40 included more extreme scorers and in part to improvement of the scale as a whole: a good item differentiates the more sharply between the upper and lower quartiles the more successfully the total scale distin- guishes individuals who are actually extreme with respect to the trends being measured.
The fact that the D. P. 's are somewhat higher, on the average, for women than for men is deserving of some comment. This phenomenon would seem to be connected with the fact that there were three groups of men-Maritime School, San Quentin Inmates, and Working-Class Men-in whose cases the reliability of the scale was relatively low (. 81-. 88). Since these groups of men were less educated than most of our subjects, there is considerable like- lihood that they failed to understand some of the scale items, a circumstance that would work against high D. P. 's as well as against reliability. Moreover, these are the three groups who, of all those studied, obtained the highest mean scores. It can be inferred from this that there was too much general agreement with some of the items, something which, as we have seen, tends to lower the D. P. This raises the question of whether we did not encounter in these groups not only more extreme manifestations of potential fascism than had been anticipated but also patterns of prefascist personality trends that the F scale did not adequately cover. Most of the work that went into the construction and revision of the scale was performed with groups of subjects in which the high scorers were, in the main, highly conventional. The procedure of retaining items which differentiated best within these groups was probably not the best one for constructing an instrument which would work with maximum efficiency in groups where tendencies to psy- chopathy and delinquency were much more pronounced. This is a matter to be discussed in more detail later.
Despite the absolute differences in the D. P. 's between men and women,
? TABLE 9 (VII)
MEANS AND DISCRIMINATORY POWERS OF THE F-~ALE ITEMS {FORMS 40 AND
Item
1. (Obedience &respect)
2. (Will power)
4. (Science)
6. (War and conflict)
a. (Supernatural power)
9. (Cheerful things)
12. (Bad manners)
13. (Discipline &determination)
16. (Born with urge)
18. (Infection and disease)
19. (Honor) 3. 50
21. (Rebellious ideas) 4. 71
22. (Germany) 4. 26
23. (Devoted leaders) 5. 18
25/24. (Sex crimes) 4. 54 26/25. (Weak and strong) 3. 05 27/26. (Undying love) 4. 09
29/27. (Astrology)
30/28. (Force to preserve)
31/~. (Prying)
33/30. (Earthquake)
34/31. (Immoral people)
35/32. (Wild sex life)
37/33. (Talk less)
38/34. (Plots) 4. 32 (13) 39/35. (Homosexuals) 3. 10 (25) 41/36. (Artists-businessmen) 2. 36 (30) 42/37. (No sane person)
43/38. (Familiarity) 44/39. (Suffering)
Rank
(15) (20. 5) (16)
Mean
4. 67 4. 94 4. 32 4. 26 3. 43 3. 71 4. 80 4. 03 3. 25 4. 13 3. 11 4. 14 3. 74 4. 84 4. 29 2. 48 3. 21 3. 16 2. 47 3. 66 2. 59 3. 16 3. 60 ,4. 59 3. 99 2. 67 1. 88 3. 85 3. 20 ,2. 47
Mean
5. 41 5. 16 4. 20 4. 69 3. 47 3. 80 5. 22 4. 59 3. 75
4. 53
(7) 2. 32 (22. 5) (22) 3. 19 (5)
(4) 3. 91 (4) (1) 2. 67 (23) '(6) 2. 89 (19) (16)
3. 31 (24) 2. 92 (27) 4. 34 (12) 2. 58 (28) 3. 38 (23) 4. 04 (17) 4. 88 (5)
2. 79
2~54
2. 98 1. 76 2. 90 2. 48 2. 84 1. 97 3. 25 1. 58 3. 13 2. 20 1. 70
(13) (17. 5) (8) (28) (10) (20. 5) ( 11) (26) (4) (30) (6)
( 25) (29)
(17) (5) (12) (24) (30) (13) (21) (27. 5)
2. 93 3. 10 2. 54 3. 36 1. 88 3. 18 2. 90 2. 29
4. 42 (11) 3. 56 (20) 2. 54 (29)
Men's GrOU(! S Rank D. P .
(1) 2. 70
(4) 2. 48 (15) 2. 55
Women's GrOUI! S
Rank D. P . Rank
(18) 2. 52 (2) 1. 77 (8) 3. 60 (19) 2. 54 (10) 2. 82 (21) 2. 74 (6) 3. 04 (14) 1. 98 (3) 2. 32 (9) 3. 68 (26) 2. 94
(8) 2. 98 (18) 3. 92 (15) 3. 14 (3) 2. 60 (11) 4. 03 (19) 2. 47 (10) 3. 52 (25) 3. 12 (9) 3. 72 (14) 2. 40 (2) 2. 87 (7) 4. 32 (29) 3. 39 (20) 3. 66
(22. 5) 3. 33 (27. 5) 2. 73 (16) 3. 02 (26) 2. 19 (22. 5) 2. 85
(3) (12) (24) (2) (26) (7) (13) (5) (27) (20) (1) (8) (6) (10) (22) (15) (29) (21) (17) (14) (25) (9) (30) ( 11) (18) (28)
(19) (27) (3) (17.