Authoritarianism : the prevalence of an authoritarian trait within students

Abstract

This study aims at gaining insight of the prevalence of an authoritarian trait within students attending the University of Malta. Some of the possible contributory factors to this attribute such as gender, family educational background, politics, religion, prejudice and social dominance are also investigated. To achieve the study's objectives, the quantitative approach was adopted and an online questionnaire was chosen and employed as the research tool. The questionnaire was constructed by using some of the statements of the Fascist Scale as the main scale and enhanced through various statements from the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, Ray Balanced F Scale, Acceptance of rational authority scale and Directiveness Scale. After all available data was collected, a total authoritarianism value of each statement for each individual was calculated and then used as a measurement for studying the contributory factors of authoritarianism. Findings demonstrate that there is a low prevalence of an authoritarian trait within the sample of University of Malta students and those who are religious or support a political party seem to have obtained higher scores than their counterparts who are non religious or who do not support any political party. Furthermore, mother's level of education, unlike that of the father, seems to have its influence on the participants' authoritarian trait. However, this study does not find a statistically significant relationship between authoritarianism and gender, political party affiliation, prejudice and social dominance.