The Generality of Attitude to Authority

TLDR

Previous research on attitude to authority has not adequately examined the generality of attitudes across different institutional authorities, a problem distinct from authoritarianism and its purported concomitants. The study aimed to develop five scales measuring attitudes toward the Police, Army, Law, Teachers, and Symbolic Authority. The authors constructed five attitude scales targeting the Police, Army, Law, Teachers, and Symbolic Authority. The scales displayed high internal consistency, strong intercorrelations indicating generality across authorities, and moderate validity with church attendance, political demonstrations, and conflicts with teachers.

Abstract

Previous research on attitude to authority has not adequately examined the generality of attitudes across different institutional authorities. This problem is distinct from "authoritarianism " and its purported concomitants. In this study, five scales were developed, relating to the Police, the Army, the Law, Teachers, and Symbolic Authority. The five scales showed a high degree of internal consistency on cross-validation. The intercorrelations among the scales, and with a Radicalism measure, demonstrated a high degree of generality in attitude towards institutional authorities. Moderate validity correlations were found with relevant reported activities: church attendance, participation in political demonstrations, and having been in conflict with teachers.