D. Correlations of the F Scale with E and with PEC
Correlations of F with the E and PEC scales, based on the three questionnaire forms and derived from all the groups used in the study, are shown in Table 10 (VII). The major result expressed in this table is that the correlation between E and F has increased with the successive revisions of the scale until it has reached a point (about .75 on the average in Forms 40, 45) where scores on the former can be predicted with fair accuracy from scores on the latter.
Table 10 (VII)
Correlations of the F Scale with the A-S, E, and PEC Scales in the Several Forms of the Questionnaire
N F. A-S F. E F. PEC
Groups taking Form 78:
Public Speaking Class Women 140 .55 .58 .52
Public Speaking Class Men 52 .52 .56 .45
Extension Class Women 40 .49 .74 .54
Professional Women 63 .57 .73 .65
Over-all: Form 78a 295 .53 .65 .54
Groups taking Form 60:
Univ. of Oregon Student Women 47 .72 .29
Univ. of Oregon and Univ. of
California Student Women 54 .78 .49
California Student Men 57 .58 .43
Oregon Service Club Men 68 .69 .29
Oregon Service Club Menb 60 .22
Over-all: Form 60 286 .69 .34
Groups taking Form 45:
Testing Class Women 59 .79 .54
San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 .59 .23
Psychiatric Clinic Women 71 .86 .62c
Psychiatric Clinic Men 50 .76 .57c
Working-Class Men and Women 50 .85 .70
Employment Service Men Veterans 51 .67 .62d
Maritime School Men 179 .56 .39d
Over-all: Form 45 570 .73 .52
Groups taking Form 40:e
George Washington Univ. Women 132 .69 .53
California Service Club Men 63 .80 .59
Middle-Class Men 69 .81 .71
Working-Class Men 61 .76 .60
Middle-Class Women 154 .83 .70
Working-Class Women 53 .87 .72
Los Angeles Men 117 .82 .58
Los Angeles Women 130 .75 .61
Employment Service Men Veterans 55 .72 .62
Maritime School Men 165 .62 .39
Over-all: Form 40 999 .77 .61
Over-all: All Forms 2150 .53 .73 .52
a In obtaining the over-all group means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.
b This group of Oregon Service Club Men received a short questionnaire form containing only the F scale and half of the PEC scale.
c For the correlations of F with PEC in the Psychiatric Clinic groups, the number of women was 45, the number of men 29, due to a substitution of forms.
d These F-PEC correlations are based on both Forms 40 and 45. Since it was considered highly unlikely that the presence or absence of 5 E items would affect the correlation of F and PEC, the two forms are taken together in order to have the advantage of the larger N's. The total N is 106 for the Employment Service Men Veterans, 343 for the Maritime School Men.
e In Form 40, it will be recalled, only the »A« half of the 10-item E scale was used.
The correlation between F and E varies rather widely from one group to another, a matter that seems to depend mainly upon the reliability of the scales themselves.12 Thus, in the San Quentin group, where the reliability of F is .87 and that of E only .65, the correlation between the two scales is at the lowest, .59; while in the case of the Working-Class Women, where the reliability of F climbs to .97,13 the correlation is at its maximum, .87. It is obvious, therefore, that if the reliabilities of the two scales were increased (which can be done by increasing the number of items within each) the correlation between E and F would be very high indeed.14 This is not to say, however, that E and F for all practical purposes measure the same thing. A correlation of .775 means that about two-thirds of the subjects who score in the high quartile on the one scale, score in the high quartile on the other, and that there are practically no reversals, i.e., cases in which a subject is high on one scale but low on the other. If one wished to use the F scale alone in order to single out subjects who were practically certain to be highly ethnocentric, i.e., in the high quartile on the present E scale, it would be necessary for him to limit himself to those scoring at the very highest extreme on F, perhaps the top 10 per cent. As pointed out earlier, there are reasons why some discrepancy between the two scales should be expected. Surely there are some individuals who have the kind of susceptibility to fascist propaganda with which the F scale is concerned but who for one reason or another tend to inhibit expressions of hostility against minority groups (subjects high on F but low on E). And we have good reason to believe that there are other people who rather freely repeat the clichés of ethnocentrism – perhaps in accordance with the climate of opinion in which they are living – without this being expressive of deep-lying trends in their personalities (subjects high on E but low on F). Such »exceptions« will be taken up in more detail later.
It is to be noted that the correlation between F and E is slightly higher on the average in the case of groups taking Form 40 than for groups taking Form 45. This means that F correlates slightly better with the A half of the E scale than with the total E scale, and that the correlation must be still lower in the case of the B half of the scale. In several groups taking Form 45 the correlations of EA and of EB with F were calculated, in addition to the correlation of total E with F. The results appear in Table 11 (VII). In each group EA.F is notably higher than EB.F, and about the same as EA + B.F. It may be recalled that the A half of the scale refers to highly generalized ethnocentrism and contains no A-S items, while the B half is made up of four A-S items and one Negro item. It happened that this Negro item was a relatively poor one in the statistical sense (rank order, 5 for men, 10 for women), but this is not enough to account for the superiority of the EA.F correlations. It seems, rather, that the F syndrome is actually more closely related to general ethnocentrism than to anti-Semitism. This is in keeping with the finding, reported earlier, that in Form 78 the F scale correlated more highly with the E scale than with the A-S scale. Although anti-Semitism is still to be understood primarily as an aspect of general ethnocentrism, there can be no doubt but that it has some special features of its own. Some of these features are described in Chapter XVI.[15]
Table 11 (VII)
Correlations of the F Scale with Each Half and with the Whole of the E Scale
Group N Correlations
EA.F EB.F EA + B.F
San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 .56 .45 .59
Employment Service 51 .66 .61 .67
Men Veterans
Maritime School Men 179 .61 .40 .56
Testing Class Women 59 .77 .66 .79
Mean .65 .53 .65
The F syndrome bears only a moderately close relation to politico-economic conservatism, the average correlation for Forms 45 and 40 being .57. Our interpretation is that high scores on PEC may proceed either from genuine conservatism or from pseudoconservatism, and that it is the latter which is most expressive of the personality trends which the F scale measures. This is in keeping with the finding that E, which is closely related to F, also shows only moderate correlation with PEC. The E.PEC correlation is about the same as the F.PEC correlation. It would appear that general ethnocentrism, as measured by the present scales, is mainly an expression of those personality structures which the F scale measures; politico-economic conservatism, while it may have this same source, may be more dependent than E upon factors in the individual's contemporary situation.