Ian Lippert Posted March 9, 2016 Posted March 9, 2016 Havent really listened to this show in a long time but I thought I would drop this here as its always been one of Stefs more interesting theories. How do you determine if someone is an authoritarian? Ask them 4 simple parenting questions. http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism But the real problem for researchers was that even if there really were such a thing as an authoritarian psychological profile, how do you measure it? How do you interrogate authoritarian tendencies, which can sometimes be latent? How do you get honest answers on questions that can be sensitive and highly politicized? As Hetherington explained to me, "There are certain things that you just can't ask people directly. You can't ask people, 'Do you not like black people?' You can't ask people if they're bigots." For a long time, no one had a solution for this, and the field of study languished. Then in the early 1990s, a political scientist named Stanley Feldman changed everything. Feldman, a professor at SUNY Stonybrook, believed authoritarianism could be an important factor in American politics in ways that had nothing to do with fascism, but that it could only reliably be measured by unlinking it from specific political preferences. He realized that if authoritarianism were a personality profile rather than just a political preference, he could get respondents to reveal these tendencies by asking questions about a topic that seemed much less controversial. He settled on something so banal it seems almost laughable: parenting goals. Feldman developed what has since become widely accepted as the definitive measurement of authoritarianism: four simple questions that appear to ask about parenting but are in fact designed to reveal how highly the respondent values hierarchy, order, and conformity over other values. Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: independence or respect for elders? Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-reliance? Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: to be considerate or to be well-behaved? Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: curiosity or good manners? Feldman's test proved to be very reliable. There was now a way to identify people who fit the authoritarian profile, by prizing order and conformity, for example, and desiring the imposition of those values. Would love to hear peoples thoughts
Mister Mister Posted March 9, 2016 Posted March 9, 2016 all very interesting. I'm not sure I get "considerate" vs. "well-behaved" however...I don't see how these are at all opposed, and both seem to have very subjective definitions.
Cuffy_Meigs Posted March 10, 2016 Posted March 10, 2016 Perhaps the idea is that those with authoritarian tendencies will interpret "well-behaved" as meaning "doing exactly what I tell them to"!
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