Adorno’s F-scale methodology reduced a complex theory of prejudice to individual psychopathology.

Evidence

As Adorno’s study proceeds, however, the analysis moves ever further away from its initial Marxist starting point and the Reichian focus on collective psychopathology, and ever closer toward a reductionist account of the social conditions of individual psychopathology. In my view this shift has less to do with the invocation of Freud’s theory of paranoia than with the choice of research methodology. With the help of Elsie Frenkel- Brunswick, a social psychologist, Adorno devised the famous “F” scale, combining measures of ethnocentrism, political and cultural conservatism, and racial intolerance into a single attitudinal profile. Whether or not he wanted to give his study a veneer of academic respectability and get its arguments taken seriously by the intellectual establishment of the day, and whether or not this strategy was overdetermined unconsciously by a desire to assimilate into the AWOL, there is no doubt that this attempt to operationalize a complex theory in narrow empiricist terms served radically to decontextualize much of the argument, and allow it to be read from a purely psychologistic point of view. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1332

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s F-scale methodology stripped the theory of its context; Prejudice theory flattened racism into individual attitudes, erasing structural dimensions — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1318; Prejudice theory reduced structural racism to interpersonal attitudes measured by scales (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s F-scale methodology stripped the theory of its context #expands (0.85)
• Prejudice theory flattened racism into individual attitudes, erasing structural dimensions #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1318
• Prejudice research cannot be reduced to individual psychology #corroborates (0.75) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 737
• The F scale collapsed due to poor psychometrics and unsupported psychodynamic theory #corroborates (0.75)
• Prejudice theory reduced structural racism to interpersonal attitudes measured by scales #expands (0.72)