The California F-scale ("F" stands for "fascist") is a 1947 personality test, designed by Theodor W. Adorno and others to measure the authoritarian personality.
It measures responses on several different components of authoritarianism, such as conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness," destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and sex. (see table below)
Scores acquired from the F-scale could be directly associated with background components, educational level, and intellectual capacity.
It is an indirect type of test that ensures the result would not be due to the individual's fake responses; this is possible because the purpose of the measurement and which attitude is being measured are initially concealed from the participants.
The existence of this correlation could possibly affect the way in which the F-scale accurately measures the authoritarian personality syndrome.
The F-Test has two principal purposes: it aims to measure prejudice and anti-democratic tendencies at the personality level.
| Personality Variable | Questions measuring variable |
|---|
| Conventionalism: Rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values. | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Authoritarian Submission: Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealizedmoral authorities of the ingroup. | 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 |
| Authoritarian Aggression: Tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn,reject, and punish people who violate conventional values. | 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 |
| Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded. | 3, 4, 17, 18 |
| Superstition and Stereotypy: The belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories. | 5, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22 |
| Power and "Toughness": Preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak,leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon theconventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness. | 8, 11, 12, 20, 23, 24, 25, 30 |
| Destructiveness and Cynicism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human. | 26, 27 |
| Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses. | 18, 22, 25, 28, 29 |
| Sex: Exaggerated concern with sexual "goings-on." | 13, 16, 29 |
