The Old-Fashioned Personality

Abstract

It is noted that the authoritarian personality theory of Adorno et al. is now seldom referred to in race relations research and that the scale used to operationalize the theory (the Fscale) is a very poor measure of what it purports to measure (right-wing authoritarianism). The Fscale does have many correlates, however, and the work of Pflaum is referred to support the contention that the F scale in fact taps an old-fashioned orientation. A large correlational study by Kline and Cooper is reinterpreted in this light and it is shown that when pejorative assumptions are discarded, the old-fashioned person would appear to have many potentially admirable characteristics. The new understanding of what the F scale measures is also shown to be helpful in making sense of the findings from many other studies.