Bob Altemeyer has spent decades studying authoritarian personality, and has some fascinating things to say about it. I came upon his work through John Dean’s book, Conservatives Without Conscience, and it really interested me.
Now I find that he has published his book online , and I’ve just started it. Early on there is a quiz to get an idea where you fall on the authoritarian scale, and having taken it, I’m really curious how my fellow Dopers might score. Here is a link to the pdf of the chapter - just scroll down to page 10 to take the quiz.
I’m going to spoiler my results, the description of the scoring, and my speculations, in case you want to avoid contaminating yourself before participating.The scale runs from 20 (very low authoritarian tendencies) to 180 (very high tendencies). College students average around 75, older folk around 90. I got . . . a 24. Given the skeptical nature of this joint, I suspect Dopers will average a lower score than the general population.
I think hereafter we can dispense with spoiler boxes, since this is meant to be a discussion of the quiz results; I just wanted people to be able to read the OP without skewing their results too much.
I got a 21… Only a fascist would score as high as a 24!
I have to say that I’m shocked at the range of scores that he presents there. Most of those statements seemed so absolute that there’s barely any middleground between 4 and -4.
I got a 21. I hated the wording and of course any question that brought tied religion in with law and government did not get a favorable response from me.
But, I think this test is skewed. Authoritarian doesn’t have to mean in a conservative way like all of the questions were bent (abortion, homosexuality, pornography) A person can be equally authoritarian by forcing liberal views on anyone…
I got a 31, but I think I should deduct at least 5 points because the whole time I was adding up my scores I was thinking “Now, why am I doing all this, just 'cause some guy on the Internet told me to take some silly test posted on the Internet by some other guy? This is probably all bunk anyway.”
Of course, if I hadn’t taken the test at all, that would entitle me to deduct 15 points.
I think anyone scoring less than 60 is trying *a little too hard * to fit in with the non-conformists, and has knuckled down irretrievably to their agenda.
anyone over 100: ve velkom you! you vil find zat brown or black make such pretty unifohms! :rolleyes:
those in the 60-100 middle: Hide. everyone is coming for you. :eek:
Or we could, as the author suggests, take this test with a grain of salt.
As it seems to serve little purpose other than to get a segment of dopers to assert their closeness to the magical 20 score…
I got a 24. I guess I’m getting mellow in my old age. Sometimes I do want the cops to come and shut down those damn kids with their damn party and their damn rap music.
I think I gained a few points for slightly disagreeing with the inclusion of wording such as “praise”, “courage”, “have to admire”, “the best people”, etc. I don’t praise and admire the courage of gays or feminists any more than I admire the courage of atheists or gun owners.
I got a 29, but that’s only because I hate giving really extreme answers to every question (even if they are extreme on the corect side). I’d hate to have anything to do with people who scored more than 40 or so on this.
That’s where I gained a lot of points as well. I don’t have to admire anybody, even if I agree with their stance. I can think some of them are complete assholes, while still siding with them politically.
Given the skeptical nature of this joint, I suspect Dopers will average a lower score than the general population.
