Each and every one of us is unique beings, who will live different lives and experience different situations. Also the way we see and interpret the world, and how we relate to the environment, is distinctive to each person. The same goes for our opinions and attitudes towards different areas and situations in life.
All of this is of enormous interest to sciences such as psychology, which throughout its history has generated a large number of instruments and methods in order to measure and value the existence of personality traits and the tendency to believe and value reality in certain ways. There are a large number of them, some serving to assess the degree of predisposition towards a type of personality or a specific trait. An example of the latter is The F scale, by Theodor Adorno which aims to measure the predisposition to fascism and authoritarianism.
The F scale is known as an instrument for evaluating human personality created with the aim of generating a method that would allow assessing the existence of what he called an authoritarian personality or, rather, the tendency or predisposition to fascism (the F coming from the scale of this word).
This scale was born in 1947 by Adorno, Levinson, Frenkel-Brunswik and Sanford, after the end of the Second World War and having to live for a long time in exile. The scale aims to assess the presence of a personality that allows predicting fascist tendencies based on the measurement of prejudices and opinions contrary to democracy, seeking to assess the existence of an authoritarian personality.
Specifically, the test measures the existence of rigid adherence to middle class values, the tendency to reject and attack those contrary to conventional values, harshness and concern for power and dominance, superstition, opposition to what emotional or subjective and ascription to a rigid rationality, cynicism, the predisposition to consider the projection of impulses as the cause of dangerous situations, the rejection of divergent sexuality, the idealization of one’s own group of belonging and authority and submission to norms generated by this
The authoritarian personality
The creation of the F scale begins first of all with the consideration of the existence of an authoritarian personality, a theory defended among others by Adorno, which can generate a tendency towards fascism
This author considered that social attitudes and ideologies were to a certain extent part of the personality, something that in the case of fascism could explain a type of personality tending towards conservatism, exaltation of the in-group, aggressiveness and rejection of unconventional values. So, although something cultural the emergence of attitudes such as fascism or democracy would be products of a personality type
The author, with a psychoanalytic orientation, considered that the authoritarian personality is the product of unconscious repression that is intended to be resolved through intolerance. The authoritarian subject presents an extreme attitude derived from the outward projection of his own internal conflicts. For this philosopher, authoritarianism would be linked to neuroticism and a childhood being dominated
Throughout his childhood, the subject has been subjected to a superego that has not allowed the child’s own ego (drives, desires and impulses) to develop normally, making him insecure and requiring a superego to guide his behavior. This will cause the generation attitudes of domination and hostility to what the subject considers outside his or her group of belonging
The characteristics of an authoritarian person are resentment, conventionalism, authoritarianism, rebellion and psychopathic aggressiveness, a tendency toward compulsivity, intolerant and manic habits, and manipulation of reality. in pursuit of developing a dictatorial stance
A scientifically debatable scale
Although the scale claims to offer a valid measurement instrument, the truth is that scientifically it suffers from a series of characteristics that have made it the subject of a wide variety of criticisms.
First of all, the fact stands out that taking into account the bases from which it was developed, a specific type of something is being pathologized that is not based on something psychiatric but in a type of concrete political attitude or ideology. It also highlights the fact that a person’s political opinion can be highly modifiable, something it does not seem to take into account.
Likewise, another reason for criticism is the fact that the test items were not previously tested, and that there are certain prejudices in its formulation that reduce its validity and objectivity. The items are also not mutually exclusive, something that makes the test difficult to interpret and can either inflate or devalue its results. Likewise, its preparation was subsidized by the North American Jewish Committee, something that is still an element that implies the existence of a conflict of interest.
Another criticism is that the interviewer can use the results in a discriminatory manner, being an instrument with a certain load of blaming and criminalization of the evaluated person depending on their results Thus, the evaluator is not totally biased during his passing.
A final criticism is made taking into account that the scale only assesses authoritarianism linked to right-wing political conservatism, not assessing the option of authoritarianism on the part of leftist groups.
Adorno, T.W. Frenkel-Brunswik, E.; Levinson, DJ & Sanford, N. R. (2006). The Authoritarian Personality (Preface, Introduction and Conclusions). EMPIRIA. Journal of Social Sciences Methodology, 12:. 155-200. National University of Distance Education. Madrid Spain.
