Organizational membership and its relation to authoritarianism and cognitive rigidity in a public school system
Date
1972
Authors
Allan, David
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study carried out in British Columbia School District 61 (Greater Victoria), tested a theory of organizational accommodation derived from the work ot Presthus (1959, 1962). It wa proposed that members with a long time span in the organization, both teachers and school administrator, would tend to be significantly more authoritarian and rigid than beginning teacher or teacher in training. Four group were defined and delimited for study. These were: non-members, students in the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria; initial members, teacher with less than five years professional experience; conformists, teachers with fifteen or more years of professional experience; and upward-mobiles, school adminitrators with fifteen or more years of professional experience and more than five years administrative experience.
No significant difference was predicted between non-members and initial members; nor between conformists
and upward-mobiles on measures of authoritarianism and rigidity. Acculturated members, both conformists and upward-mobiles, were expected to be significantly more authoritarian and rigid than the other two groups. Authoritarianism was measured by responses to the California F Scale (Adorno et al., 1964, pp. 255-258). Rigidity was measured by the Fx (flexibility) Scale taken from the California Psychological Inventory (Gough 1916). In addition to testing hypotheses derived from the theory exploratory question regarding the relationship or age and sex to authoritarianism and cognitive rigidity were investigated. A representative sample of students in their professional year in the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria comprised the non-member group. The samples that constituted the remaining groups were randomly selected from the professional staff of School District #61.
Data were subjected to the following statistical analyses:
1. Hypotheses and exploratory questions regarding age were tested using Single Classification Analysis of Variance and the post hoc Scheffé Multiple Comparison of Group Means test.
2. The exploratory questions regarding sex were examined with a t test.
3. Reliability of the scales was calculated using the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20.
4. Additional evidence of validity was provided by correlating the scales within and across groups.
All twelve hypotheses were sustained (p < . 01). Investigation of the exploratory questions indicated that age, but not sex, was positively related to authoritarianism and rigidity. Later an Analysis of Covariance was conducted using age categories as the covariate. Results remained statistically significant (p < . 05).