{
  "creator": [
    "Jäger, David W. G. F.",
    "Knasmüller, Florian",
    "Brunner, Markus",
    "Heller, Ayline"
  ],
  "date": [
    "2025-12-19"
  ],
  "description": [
    "There are two main points of reference to Frankfurt School's authoritarianism research. On the one hand, scholars who, following Fromm (1932), seek to identify a contemporary social character under conditions of post-Fordist capitalism emphasize that the authoritarian character has been replaced by a flexible, entrepreneurial self. On the other hand, research on authoritarianism still relies on adaptations of the F-scale developed by Adorno et al. (1950) (e.g., Altemeyer, 1981; Beierlein et al., 2014; Oesterreich, 1998; Decker et al., 2022). At the same time, certain new forms of authoritarianism are being identified (Amlinger & Nachtwey, 2025). In this paper, we aim to bridge this tension by introducing a measurement tool for a contemporary “affirmative social character” adapted to flexible capitalism, and to explore the relationship between this social character and authoritarian tendencies. Based on a German sample (N = 1,196), we develop the 28-item Aff-Scale to measure the adaptive authoritarian tendencies aligned with the demands of 21st-century meritocracy. The scale captures five dimensions: affirmation, self-optimization, flexibility & mobility, solutionism, and libertarianism. Validation measures included traditional authoritarianism (KSA-3; Beierlein et al., 2014), right-wing extremism (FR-LF; Heller et al., 2020), and sociodemographic variables. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the multidimensionality (CFI = 0.927; RMSEA = 0.048) but showed a need for further validation. Internal consistency was good (Cronbach's α = .83; ω = .64) and the expected correlations with RWA and educational-, social status and age were significant. Despite its limitations, the Aff-scale is a useful tool for examining a 21st century social character and contributes to a better understanding of modernized forms of authoritarianism."
  ],
  "format": [
    "application/pdf",
    "text/html",
    "text/xml"
  ],
  "identifier": [
    "https://miss.psychopen.eu/index.php/miss/article/view/16923",
    "10.5964/miss.16923"
  ],
  "language": [
    "eng"
  ],
  "publisher": [
    "PsychOpen GOLD / Leibniz Institut for Psychology (ZPID)"
  ],
  "relation": [
    "https://miss.psychopen.eu/index.php/miss/article/view/16923/16923.pdf",
    "https://miss.psychopen.eu/index.php/miss/article/view/16923/16923.html",
    "https://miss.psychopen.eu/index.php/miss/article/view/16923/16923.xml"
  ],
  "rights": [
    "Copyright (c) 2025 David W. G. F. Jäger, Florian Knasmüller, Markus Brunner, Ayline Heller",
    "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"
  ],
  "source": [
    "Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences; Vol. 7 (2025); 1-28",
    "2523-8930",
    "10.5964/miss.v7"
  ],
  "subject": [
    "Affirmative Character",
    "Right-Wing Authoritarianism",
    "Neoliberal subjectivity",
    "New Authoritarianism",
    "Self-Optimization",
    "Technological Solutionism",
    "Social Character"
  ],
  "title": [
    "The Affirmative Character Scale: A Tool to Explore New Forms of Authoritarianism"
  ],
  "type": [
    "info:eu-repo/semantics/article",
    "info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion"
  ]
}