The F Scale partly measured mere yielding, not authoritarian content

Evidence

The discovery of the role of acquiescence in the F Scale made uncertain the interpretation of many studies showing consistent correlations between F scores and scores on other paper and pencil tests. Many of these other tests were also written so that most items asserted in a single direction and so these tests like the F Scale were measures of acquiescence. Consequently many results that had been interpretated as manifestations of the generality of authoritarianism now appeared to be interpretable as manifestations of the generality of acquiescence. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 584

Categorization

• XREF: A measurement artifact overturning an apparent empirical regularity — parallel to how method artifacts can manufacture apparent identity clusters in ideology research. — connects to: The F Scale partly measured a tendency to agree regardless of content — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 582; The F scale measured attitudes, not personality, and conflated the two — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2442; The F Scale measures implicit authoritarian trends without content-laden items — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 468 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The F Scale partly measured a tendency to agree regardless of content #expands (0.95) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 582
• The F Scale measures implicit authoritarian trends without content-laden items #contradicts (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 468
• The F-scale’s items registered strong rejection as authoritarianism even on partly true statements #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1770
• Authoritarianism scales measure ideology, not underlying personality traits #corroborates (0.75)
• Unbalanced scales can show spurious significance without true construct validity #expands (0.72)
• The F scale measured attitudes, not personality, and conflated the two #corroborates (0.70) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2442