Authoritarianism and Fundamentalism of Rural and Urban High School Students

A test of the hypothesis that authoritarianism varies directly with fundamentalism, employing the following operational definitions: (1) authoritarianism is measured by the F-scale, (2) fundamentalism is indicated by preference of churches & sects having fundamental theology, (3) influence of religious belief is indicated by S's self-evaluation, (4) SES is indicated by the occup'al level of the breadwinner, & (5) the Ur category includes all S's who attend HSch's within a SMA, while the Ru category includes small communities & open county areas. The F-Scale & Srole Scale were administered along with items re background information to a pop of 1,027 HSch seniors in Tennessee. Results indicated that diff in authoritarianism between fundamentalist & nonfundamentalist S's tends to decrease as SES & Ur influence decrease. When influence of belief is added as a control factor, the diff still tends to decrease among those S's who indicate high influence of religious belief. Only some F-scale items are related to Protestant fundamental preference & the relationship is more apparent for S's in the white-collar than in the blue-collar groups. Possible links between authoritarianism & fundamentalism include: the premillenial pessimism of fundamentalism, the Puritan qualities of asceticism & denial of aggressive impulses, & the rejection of rational & sci'ific attempts to better conditions in this world. I. Taviss.