Culture, Class, Personality, and Authoritarianism among White South Africans
- 1 December 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in The Journal of Social Psychology
- Vol. 121 (2), 191-199
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1983.9924488
Abstract
Although Adorno et al. related F-scale authoritarianism to childhood socialization, substantial F scale/SES correlations have suggested alternative explanations in terms of SES or such concepts as breadth of perspective. Ray has also argued that the F scale only measures attitudinal authoritarianism and has therefore presented his directiveness scale as a behaviorally valid measure of authoritarian personality. The present study attempted to elucidate some of these issues by examining the prediction of F scale authoritarianism from directiveness scores, culture, class, and other demographic variables in a large community sample of white South Africans. The results indicated that culture (language group) was the best predictor of F-scale scores, SES was only weakly predictive, and directiveness had no predictive utility. A sex effect, with higher F scale scores for men, emerged for Afrikaans-speaking but not English-speaking Ss. These findings seemed to be reasonably compatible with a socialization explanation of F-scale authoritarianism but inconsistent with explanations in terms of SES or such concepts as breadth of perspective.Keywords
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