The F-scale’s item selection rewarded blanket rejection of partly true statements as prejudice-free.

Evidence

With their two alterations and abbreviations of the F-scale, the Berkeley group excluded not only certain items which were so true or rationally plausible that both strongly prejudiced and strongly prejudice-free subjects agreed with them, but also certain items which were so drastically or aggressively formulated that both largely prejudice-free and strongly prejudiced subjects rejected them. But many similar items remained, for example statements in the final version of the F-scale such as A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people', The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor’, and `Science has its place, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind.’ 60 Strong rejection of such statements was automatically registered as positive, although their large element of truth would have suggested at the most weak rejection or at least rather weak agreement. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 437

Categorization

• QUESTION: How much of the measured authoritarianism is an artifact of item formulation rather than a real personality disposition?
• XREF: connects to: The F-scale’s items registered strong rejection as authoritarianism even on partly true statements — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1770; Stereotyped scale items penalize nuanced agreement and reward blanket rejection — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1771; Agree-response bias can inflate prejudice scale scores artificially (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The F-scale’s items registered strong rejection as authoritarianism even on partly true statements — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1770; Stereotyped scale items penalize nuanced agreement and reward blanket rejection — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1771; Agree-response bias can inflate prejudice scale scores artificially (+1 more)