The Attitudes of English and Australian College Students toward Institutional Authority

Abstract

Summary It is argued that “authoritarianism” and “attitude to authority” should be differentiated, and that measures based upon the latter concept hold greater promise of success in investigating differences between cultures. It was confirmed that Ray's Directiveness Scale, a valid measure of one aspect of authoritarianism, is uncorrelated with a general measure of attitudes toward institutional authority (the GAIAS). Further, unlike the Directiveness Scale, that measure provided evidence of cross-cultural differences between college students in England (N = 100) and Australia (N = 100). English students were significantly more pro-authority.