Authoritarianism and Self-Esteem Among White Rhodesian (Zimbabwean) and South African Students

Abstract

Summary Several months prior to the official renaming of Rhodesia as Zimbabwe, Ray's directiveness scale, which measures authoritarian behavior, and Rosenberg's self-esteem inventory were administered to a sample of 160 white first-year and third-year Rhodesian and South African university students. Respondents ranged in age from 17 years to 23 years. The hypothesis that third-year male students would be more authoritarian than their third-year female counterparts, and that this difference would not exist in the first-year level, was confirmed. The hypothesis that male students would have significantly greater self-esteem than the females was not supported. These findings are accounted for in terms of involvement in the antiterrorist military effort. An unexpected finding was that the Rhodesian females had a significantly lower self-esteem score than the South African female students.