F-scale (authoritarian personality)

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The F-scale (abbreviation for fascism-scale , also California F-scale ) is a questionnaire that is supposed to record typical attitudes and personality traits of the authoritarian personality . The questionnaire was developed during the Second World War , but not only with Germany in mind .

Objective and development of the questionnaire

The questionnaire was developed for the famous social psychological research project on The Authoritarian Personality (1950) by Theodor W. Adorno , Else Frenkel-Brunswik , Daniel Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford at the University of California at Berkeley . The authors tried not only to shed light on the emergence of fascism and anti-Semitism , but also to capture general anti-democratic tendencies and, in the long term, to contribute to democratic education .

The selected personality traits largely correspond to the characteristics of the authoritarian character explained by Erich Fromm from a psychoanalytical point of view . The Berkeley Group also followed other social psychological and sociological concepts and used item analysis to construct the F-scale, which is just one of their newly developed research methods.

The F-scale contains nine areas (so-called subscales):

  • Conventionalism . Rigid connection to the conventional values ​​of the middle class.
  • Authoritarian submission . Uncritical submission to idealized ingroup authorities.
  • Authoritarian aggression . Tendency to look for people who disregard conventional values ​​in order to judge, reject and punish them.
  • Anti-intraception . Defense against the subjective, the imaginative, the sensitive.
  • Superstition and stereotype . Believe in the mystical determination of one's own fate, the disposition to think in rigid categories.
  • Thinking about power and “powerhouse” . Thinking in dimensions like domination - submission, strong - weak, leader-allegiance; Identification with figures of power; Overemphasis on the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated display of strength and robustness.
  • Destructiveness and Cynicism. General hostility, defamation of the human.
  • Projectivity. Disposition to believe in desolate and dangerous processes in the world; the projection of unconscious instinctual impulses onto the outside world.
  • Sexuality . Excessive preoccupation with sexual "processes".

The given statements (items, statements) are more or less culture and time dependent, as the following examples show:

  • No matter how many people mock, it can still be shown that astrology can explain many things.
  • America is so far removed from the real American way of life that it may only be a force to restore it.
  • Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.
  • Moral crimes, such as rape and rape against children, deserve more than mere prison sentences; such criminals should be publicly flogged and punished even more severely.
  • Every person should have a firm belief in a supernatural power that is above him, to which he is entirely subject, and whose decisions he does not question.

The agreement or rejection of these statements should be indicated on a multi-level scale (agreement: low, medium, strong or rejection: low, medium, strong). Consent to these statements indicates a right-wing authoritarian personality. The authors refrained from examining the attitudes of the radical left-wing authoritarian personality.

The original form 78 of the questionnaire consisted of 38 items on the F-scale ("implicit anti-democratic tendencies and fascism potential") plus additional items on the areas of anti-Semitism AS scale, ethnocentrism E-scale and political-economic conservatism PEC-scale. Many items were redesigned, in some areas such as dogmatism and ethnocentrism, models already existed. Based on the empirical results and item analyzes, the entire questionnaire was revised, shortened and content adapted several times (revised form 60 with the 38 F items). After the end of the war in 1945, for example, a statement about the day of Pearl Harbor was deleted and another, albeit ambiguous, item was added: "It would be best to reinstate some pre-war authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos." The F-scale Form 40 and Form 45 only have 30 items, some of which were evaluated for two of the nine subscales.

The Berkeley group carried out numerous surveys and described characteristic differences between selected groups of people and high correlations between the results of the F-scale and the scales of anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism and conservatism. There was also a relationship with socio-economic status and schooling ( intelligence ). The test authors reported in detail on the item analyzes and the relatively high reliability of the F-scale. In the United States, The Authoritarian Personality found great interest and recognition of intentions.

"The attempt to develop a scale that measures prejudice without showing this purpose and without mentioning minority groups seems to have succeeded in a satisfactory manner." ... "Whether we have achieved the second purpose pursued by the F-scale - to create an instrument with which the susceptibility of the individual to fascism based on the character structure can be assessed - has yet to be proven. "

In Germany, the F-scale is often attributed to Theodor W. Adorno . It is true, however, that the American social psychologist R. Nevitt Sanford was the main researcher and author. (For Adorno's share in the overall project, his aversion to empirical social research using psychological methods, and the reasons for the order of the author names, see Authoritarian Personality ).

Criticism of the F-scale

The abbreviation as an F -scale indicates the problem already discussed by the authors: at that time they did not want to use the term anti-Semitism, later the term fascism was too narrow. Many sociologically trained social scientists do not seem to suit the concept of authoritarian personality, because it is initially shaped by psychoanalytic thinking and later influenced by psychological research on personality and personality traits . Today the similar but not synonymous term right-wing extremism is often used.

Social psychologists tried to test the validity of the F-scale by comparing different groups of people who, hypothetically, would have to differ in their degree of authoritarian attitude. However, group differences can also be due to other factors: school education, social class, religious orientation, age, and also the intention to make a good impression or a lack of openness. Many of the statements relate to ideological or political topics and are therefore sensitive, although the researchers have intentionally excluded questions about anti-Semitism and ethnocentric prejudices and put them together in special scales within the research project. For these topics, biasing response tendencies are more likely than for many other questionnaires or interviews. Above all, the tendency to say yes ( acquisition ) and the tendency to answer as socially desirable should be mentioned.

Newer versions of the questionnaire

There were already several versions of the F-scale in the original research project, and today the authoritarianism scale is the generic term for a number of more or less divergent questionnaire instruments. In Germany, an F-scale was published by Klaus Roghmann in 1966: the scale for recording authoritarian personality traits contains 44 items for the 9 components of the American F-scale, with many items being expressed in a shorter and clearer way. There are 22 opposing statements. In the plus version, the items would have to be answered in the affirmative, in the minus version they would have to be negated in order to be offset as an answer in terms of the F scale. This is to counter the possible tendency to say yes, for example:

We should draw a line under our past; just as bad things happened with the others (plus version). - We should deal more intensively with our recent past, even if things just as bad have happened to the others (minus version).

11 items were taken from the American F-scale, 3 come from a Rokeach dogmatism scale and 8 can also be found in Freyhold's Frankfurt scale. The quality criteria were only insufficiently checked.

The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research published the Frankfurt Authoritarianism Scale by Michaela von Freyhold in 1971, probably at the suggestion of Adorno, but only two decades after his return from the USA . (Michaela von Freyhold: Authoritarianism and political apathy. European publishing house, Frankfurt a. M. 1971.). It was a revision of the American scale with only 13 items based on item analyzes on a large sample, but without new proof of validity, for example through comparative studies - as would have been possible - of members of the SS and Waffen-SS , NSDAP members, Followers and perpetrators in the Nazi regime .

In 1983, Gerda Lederer et al. Developed and reviewed 8 subscales based on the Californian F and E scales as well as more recent American contributions: general authoritarianism , core authoritarianism , respect for non-specific authority , respect for state authority , respect for parental authority , rejection of foreigners , authoritarianism Family Structure , New General Authoritarianism .

Detlef Oesterreich published an authoritarianism scale in 1974 , which contained two subscales: for recording rigidity (rigidity of behavior) with 17 items and dogmatism with 24 items. A fundamental theoretical and test methodical revision led in 1998 to a new psychological questionnaire, which is only aimed at behavior and experience, i.e. the assessment of one's own person and feelings in certain situations. This authoritarianism questionnaire is intended to help explain political attitudes without capturing them. The questionnaire contains 31 items from areas which, according to Austria, form the central characteristics of authoritarian personalities:

  1. Fearful defense against the new and the foreign,
  2. Rigid and inflexible behavior,
  3. Willingness to adapt and subordinate,
  4. Orientation towards power and strength,
  5. Hostility and suppressed aggressiveness,
  6. Conformity.

Each item is formulated as a double statement, in which two statements face each other. In between there is a 5-point scale with the levels “correct”, “largely correct”, “difficult to say”, “largely disagree”, “incorrect”. An example:

"I admire people who can rule others" - - - - - "I despise people who want to rule others"

For the evaluation, the point values ​​assigned to the answers are added to a total value. The questionnaire was used in slightly modified versions in four empirical studies with around 3000 adolescents and young adults. Whether the contradicting formulation of the statements is actually able to significantly reduce the yes-saying tendency can hardly be assessed due to the lack of independent testing options. Expressing such contrasts precisely is often difficult psychologically and linguistically. Much more important will probably be the response tendency in terms of social desirability, which in principle cannot be precisely checked in questionnaires. The reliability coefficients (internal consistency , see item analysis ) were in the range of 74 to .85. The results correlated with an independent scale for right-wing extremist orientations, but there is a lack of systematic comparisons with known personality questionnaires that have similar content and, above all, more precise validity tests on the level of everyday behavior.

Research experience and criticism

The F-scale is intended to diagnose a pattern ( syndrome ) of anti-democratic attitudes and personality traits and to give indications of the “fascist potential”. The extraordinary importance of the overall concept in the post-war period led to an unmanageable number of studies and interpretations (on fundamental criticism, on the hesitant reception in post-war Germany, as well as on more recent research approaches and references, see authoritarian personality ).

The usual reliability coefficients are only suitable to a very limited extent as yardsticks for a questionnaire consisting of different components and must be supplemented by factor analyzes , cluster analyzes and other statistical methods (see personality questionnaire ). The original F-scale was not intended to capture a single (and homogeneous) dimension, but rather a pattern of similar, frequently occurring characteristics. One can speak of a typical authoritarian personality even if not all characteristics are present and equally developed. Convincing proof of validity that goes beyond the group differences described is very difficult, because the self-assessments in the questionnaire would have to be compared with objective observations of behavior in certain situations, with biographies and political processes (as Altemeyer also emphasized in his books, see also Meloen, 1993) . From the socio-psychological research on willingness to obey ( Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment ) - also for methodological reasons - no convincing answers to this question are available.

In Germany, the F-scale or research on authoritarian personality, also with regard to National Socialism , aroused far less interest than in the USA. However, the topic remains topical. Apart from everyday field research , there is currently, despite the critical objections, hardly a more convincing alternative than using one of the improved questionnaires. A questionnaire on dogmatism or right-wing extremism would not be able to describe the broader pattern of authoritarian attitudes.

literature

  • Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford: The Authoritarian Personality . Harper and Brothers, New York 1950.
  • Robert Altemeyer: Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism . Wiley, New York 1988, ISBN 1555420974 .
  • Robert Altemeyer: The Authoritarian Specter . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1996.
  • Michaela von Freyhold : Authoritarianism and Political Apathy. European Publishing House, Frankfurt a. M. 1971.
  • Gerda Lederer: Youth and Authority: on the change in attitudes towards authoritarianism in the Federal Republic of Germany and the USA. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1983, ISBN 3-531-11599-5 .
  • Jos D. Meloen: The F Scale as a Predictor of Fascism: An Overview of 40 Years of Authoritarianism Research. In: William F. Stone, Gerda Lederer, Richard Christie (Eds.): Strength and Weakness: The Authoritarian Personality Today. Springer, New York 1993, ISBN 0-387-97698-1 , pp. 47-69.
  • Detlef Oesterreich: Escape to Security: The Theory of Authoritarianism and Authoritarian Reaction. Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1996, ISBN 3-8100-1688-8 .
  • Detlef Oesterreich: A new measure for measuring authoritarian character traits . In: Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie , 1998, Volume 29, 56-64.
  • Detlef Oesterreich: Authoritarian personalities and socialization in the parental home. Theoretical considerations and empirical results. In: Susanne Rippl, Christian Seipel, Angela Kindervater (eds.). Authoritarianism. Controversies and approaches in current research on authoritarianism . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 2000. ISBN 3-8100-1688-8 , pp. 69-90.
  • Klaus Roghmann: Dogmatism and Authoritarianism. Critique of the theoretical approaches and results of three West German studies. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1966.
  • R. Nevitt Sanford, Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson: The measurement of anti-democratic traits in the character structure. In: Theodor W. Adorno: Studies on the authoritarian character (ed. By Ludwig von Friedeburg). Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1973. (= incomplete German translation only of the articles on Theodor W. Adorno, Else * Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford, 1950: The Authoritarian Personality ). ISBN 3-518-28782-6 , pp. 37-104.

See also

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ R. Nevitt Sanford et al. a., 1973, p. 45
  2. ↑ in the German translation, see R. Nevitt Sanford u. a., 1973, pp. 81-84.
  3. ^ R. Nevitt Sanford et al. a., 1973, p. 83.
  4. ^ R. Nevitt Sanford et al. a., 1973, p. 101.
  5. ↑ Jochen Fahrenberg, John M. Steiner: Adorno and the authoritarian personality. In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology , Volume 56, 2004, pp. 127–152.
  6. ↑ Several of the questionnaires mentioned here are available in the information system Compilation of Social Science Items and Scales of the Gesis, Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences, Mannheim: zis.gesis.org .
  7. ↑ Klaus Roghmann: Dogmatism and Authoritarianism. Critique of the theoretical approaches and results of three West German studies. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1966, pp. 398-400.
  8. ↑ Detlef Oesterreich: A new measure for measuring authoritarian characteristics . In: Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie , 1998, Volume 29, 56-64.