I once heard the F-Scale described as a way to see who would kick the person below them while sucking up to the person above them.
Recently i found this intriguing tool from the group that brought us critical theory marked up and available on line.
The goal of the scale was to predict a predilection to acquiescent to authoritarian behaviour. Research from 20-40 years ago suggested thing it really predicts is racism. but it's made a come back as a more valid predictor of authoritarian tendencies - at least in a revised form, the balanced F-scale.
The balanced F-scale attempts to work out the flaws in terms of types of measures in the original F-scale. While a variety of approaches to consider conservatism etc have resulted (listed here), the Balanced F-scale seems popular in the personality/psych literature. This refactored scale changes a hand full of questions from the original.
There's been debate about whether any version shows acquiescence vs cultural traditionalism. In any case, traits associated with its findings aren't nice and apparently are correlated even in decisions in jury trials. Some authors as recently as 2006 argue the validity of the scale has been supported.
In any case, why not give it a go - or better yet, ask your colleagues to give it a go - and see if you're nodding to yourself at their responses - or which ones you think you may just want to fudge.
Posted by mc at August 2, 2008 03:11 PM