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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Authoritarian Personality | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:56:14.203855+00:00 | kb-cron |
==== Explanation in terms of socio-economic status (SES) rather than repression ==== "We can easily imagine plausible reasons for the association of each authoritarian trait with the cluster that includes low IQ, little education, and low SES and so the explanation of covariation among the traits is simply their several particular ties to the same underlying factors. [...][However][...] Norms are not put together at random or incidentally. When they stabilize into a particular combination it must be because that is a combination that works for human personalities" (Brown, p. 75)
==== Left wing authoritarianism ==== A number of studies have examined the external criterion validity of F scale, with various demographic and political groups. Such groups included: German cosmetic factory workers (Cohn and Carsch, 1954); English fascists and communists, compared to 'politically neutral' soldiers (Coulter, 1953). Both studies found high scores (>5) in F-Scale. However, the Coulter study also found the Communists scored higher in F-Scale than the politically neutral group. Eysenck (1954, ref. by Brown, p. 80) commented that Coulter's results indicate that the F-Scale actually measures general authoritarianism, rather than fascist tendencies in particular. (see Left-Wing authoritarianism) Christie (1956) attributed Coulter's findings to sampling fluctuation, pointing out the politically neutral group was unusually low in F-Scale, compared to 50 known group means at the time. Rokeach (1960) obtained F-Scale scores from 13 Communist college students in England. Their mean was the lowest of all known groups. Brown, (2004, p. 80) states: "... the Berkeley researchers seem to have been correct in their belief that the F-Scale is a measure of fascism."
== Authors and conflicts == Sanford and Levinson were both psychology professors at Berkeley. They did much of the preliminary work on ethnocentrism and statistical measurement. Frenkel-Brunswik examined personality variables and family background with a series of interview studies. Adorno provided a political and sociological perspective to the book. Although Adorno's name heads the alphabetical list of authors, he arrived late to the project and made a relatively small contribution. Adorno, in a 1947 letter to Horkheimer, said that his main contribution was the F-scale, which in the end was the "core of the whole thing." An agreement among the authors held that each one was to sign the individual chapters to which he or she had contributed, and that all four were to sign the chapter on the F-scale; Adorno was credited in 5 of the 23 chapters. The initially planned title for the book was The Fascist Character and the Measurement of Fascist Trends, but as early as 1947 Adorno feared that the assistants at Berkeley would try to sanitize it to a more innocuous title like Character and Prejudice. The final title was the result of a compromise.