F-Scale

The F-Scale (also known as the Fascist Scale)is a personality inventory that was created in California in 1947 as a measure of authoritarian traits or tendencies, as well as capacity for independent thought and self-will.

The F-scale was, in the wake of WWII, designed and named for identifying and measuring the negative and aggressive human traits that had been encouraged by the Fascist political movement that had swept through Europe in the early 20th century; aggression, conformity, cynical attitudes, susceptibility to superstition and stereotypes, conventionalism (belief in blind obedience and "fitting in"), and positive attitudes towards power, toughness, and destructiveness. The scale is still clinically used to measure prejudice and attitudes about power and authority.