Authoritarian Person's Perception of His Relationship with His Father

Abstract

The relationship between Ss' scores on the Authoritarian ( F) Scale and their perception of father as an authoritarian, and their perception of similarity between self, father, and ideal person, were investigated in 100 male Ss. As predicted, high F scorers perceived their fathers as more authoritarian and as more similar to their ideal person than did low F scorers. The perception of similarity between self and father and between self and ideal person were not related to F scores. It was concluded that the authoritarian son does not see himself as achieving the idealized level of his father and that the significant quality in the relationship includes ignoring attitudes and distance as well as strictness.