Understanding the Rebellious Conformist: A Note on Rhoads's Study of Authoritarianism

James Rhoads's "Researching Authoritarian Personality with Q Methodology" represents a wholly new approach in research on the authoritarian personality. Many of his findings are counter-intuitive, but by beginning with the kind of scale scores traditionally used, he demonstrates that these findings have been within the grasp of previous rearchers requiring only a change in analytic strategy. His intensive analysis of a single case is shown to agree well with the "remarkable parallel" between Q methodology and quantum mechanics in terms of the foregoing of averages, the indeterminateness of meaning, the complementarity of factors, and interference effects.

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