The F-scale is a 1947 personality test

Personality test

-Overview:There are many different types of personality tests. The most common type, the self-report inventory, involves the administration of many questions, or "items", to test-takers who respond by rating the degree to which each item reflects their behavior...

, designed by Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist known for his critical theory of society....

 and others to measure the authoritarian personality

Authoritarian personality

-Historical Origins:Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Sanford compiled a large body of research and theory , which attempted to characterize a personality type that described the “potentially fascistic individual”...

. The "F" stands for "fascist." The F-scale measures responses on several different components of authoritarianism, including conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition

Superstition

Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

 and stereotype

Stereotype

A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...

, power

Power (sociology)

Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...

 and "toughness," destructiveness

Destructiveness

Destructiveness is a faculty from the discipline of phrenology.-Definition:Destructiveness is the area of dynamic energy. Some authors call it Executive Energy. It stands for force, dynamism, fighting spirit . It accumulates energy, basically for self-preservation...

 and cynicism

Cynicism

Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...

, projectivity, and sex

Sex

In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...

. The F-scale is meant to identify how racism develops in people. Scores on the F Scale can be used to generate inferences about other extratest characteristics and behaviors.

Criticisms

Among the criticisms of the F-scale is its sensitivity to respondents with acquiescent

Acquiescence

Acquiescence is a legal term used to describe an act where a person knowingly stands by without raising any objection to the infringement of their rights, while someone else unknowingly and without malice aforethought makes a claim on their rights...

 response styles. A number of related scales such as the Wilson-Patterson Conservatism Scale and the Balanced F-scale have been created in an attempt to fix the shortcomings of the F-scale. Robert Altemeyer

Robert Altemeyer

Robert "Bob" Altemeyer is a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.He has written extensively on authoritarianism and refined the theory into the concept of Right Wing Authoritarianism. Altemeyer's work is extensively referenced in John W. Dean's 2006 book, Conservatives...

's Right-wing authoritarianism Scale is the most frequently used, contemporary descendant of the F-scale.