Several lines of enquiry which would have been of
special interest were closed for lack of greater numbers
of subjects. For example, although one of the five
lower middle-class schools was Roman Catholic, the
question whether religious affiliation entered significantly into the development of leadership potential and
popularity in children could not "be pursued.
The question whether the tendency for a majority
of Edinburgh parents to have authoritarian attitudes
is typical of the rest of Britain is obviously outside
the scope of this study, but it is one of considerable
sociological interest. Gorer (1955), in his enquiry into
different aspects of English character, found marked
regional differences in attitudes to paternal authority,
punishment, etc. It is difficult to draw any conclusions
from this data about the distribution of underlying
authoritarian attitudes. Some of his generalisations
are clearly relevant, e.g. 'the great majority of
English parents...have most decided views on the
suitability or unsuitability of specific punishments,
quite regardless of any differences in the children's
temperaments or characters', and 'the majority
disapprove (of inflicting severe pain on children as
punishment) .... but the emphasis with which such
disapproval is voiced suggests the possibility that
there is an unconscious temptation against which such
defences have to be erected. In many other societies I
very much doubt whether such heat and indignation would
be engendered on the subject of severe punishment of
children '. On the whole it would probably be true
to say that social class differences are more significant
than regional differences in influencing parents' attitudes
to parent-child relationships; in particular, Gorer
suggests, this applies to the 25% of the population other than the straight middle- and working-class, i.e.
the lower middle- and upper working-class and the
upper middle and lower working-class. Some regional
differences may he peculiarly relevant to authoritarianism,
however, e.g. the fact that in the North-East and North
of England paternal authority is at its highest and that
there are the greatest number of all-male associations,
whereas in the North-West women have greater authority
in their family and greater independence than in any
other part of England.
Scotland was not included in Gorer's survey, and
one can only speculate on these matters. The greater
use of the tawse in Scottish schools than of corresponding
forms of corporal punishment in English schools is
often remarked upon. 'Even 50 years ago, beating with
the tawse was so common that practically no parent had
any sympathy for a child who complained of it', writes
Douglas Young in an article in the 'News Chronicle
Dispatch' (25/3/58) in reference to the book by Hugh
Millar, 'My Schools and Schoolmasters'. A revealing
remark is made by Dr. M. A. S. Ross in an article
entitled 'Staff-Student Relationships at Edinburgh
University' in the University Gazette No. 15 (1957):-
'A most important factor in discussion tutorials is the
'diffidence' of the Scottish student - his unwillingness
to speak in the presence of authority'. Indications of
a similar kind that an authoritarian background may be
one of the characteristic features of Scottish life are
frequently encountered. And indeed, on the basis of some of the findings of the present research concerning
leadership, may not this be a factor in Scotland's
traditional facility for producing a triumphant pioneering
spirit in her sons, as well as considerable powers of
leadership? This may well be so; but it should be
remembered that non-authoritarian upbringing equally
produces leaders and that just possibly they may have
something in common with Anderson's 'integrative'
leaders, in contrast to those of a more 'dominative'
kind.
Lastly, the question of the practical implications
of this research remains to be considered. In the
absence of specific evidence as to which kind of leadership
the two types of upbringing tend to foster, it must be
assumed that 'leadership in general' is the outcome of
both, but that authoritarian upbringing is especially
likely to produce it. From this point of view authoritarian
upbringing no doubt has much to commend it. On the
other hand, authoritarian upbringing is demonstrably
more prone to produce unpopular children, and this must
surely call for disapproval, especially if it can be
shown that unpopularity is in fact associated with some
form of 'ego-weakness'. On balance it may perhaps be
thought that the advantages are on the side of nonauthoritarian upbringing. But if so, what follows?
Robb (1954) points out the obviously broad scope of this problem at the
conclusion of his book, 'Working-Glass Anti-Semites',
after he has shown that anti-Semitism is not so much an
intellectual system of beliefs about Jews as the fulfilment
of certain inner psychological needs in personalities
of a definite type. The problem is essentially the same, all the work done in this field
confirms that anti-Semitism and authoritarianism in
its extreme form are different expressions of the same
personality-formation. This is not to say that anti-Semitism characterises half of Edinburgh's population
of parents, of whom only a tiny proportion could be
regarded as extreme authoritarians. But all the parents
who come in the intermediate part of the F-scale range,
and probably most of the high-scorers too, could no
doubt be comprehensively described as 'having authoritarian
leanings', and as far as their relationships with their
children are concerned, their failings could perhaps
best be summed up as 'tending not to respect their
children as individuals, with rights and feelings of
their own'. This may well describe the average parent
in the country as a whole. Mueller (1945) surveys the
literature on paternal domination in different cultures
in order to make a comparison with the position in the
U.S.A. and concludes, 'In Europe the tradition of
paternal superiority and control is still the accepted
pattern; children are trained to a more deferential
attitude and a more military-like obedience to their
father than in the United States....'. The results of
the present research show that the matter is not an
unimportant one. The question is, how can people be
brought to modify their attitudes, in so far as those
attitudes are deleterious?
Robb (1954) says, 'the conclusion would seem
inescapable that in the long run the most effective
attack on anti-Semitism and prejudice generally is
along the lines of prevention.... efforts designed to
promote the growth of well-adjusted personalities offer
one of the chief long-range hopes of producing a marked
and lasting reduction in prejudice'. The same is surely
true for authoritarianism. Among such efforts might
be included the publication of relevant findings, such
as Robb's own work, in the hope that they will be
read by parents of young children. Will not there be
greatest resistance to insight from precisely those
parents who are in greatest need of it? That is so,
but let Adorno et al. have the last encouraging word: 'Techniques for overcoming resistance, developed mainly
in the field of individual psychotherapy, can be
improved and adapted for use with groups and even for
use on a mass scale. Let it be admitted that such
techniques could hardly be effective with the extreme
ethnocentrist, but it may be remembered that the
majority of the population are not extreme but, in our
terminology, 'middle' '.
