In the late 1960's and early 1970's I was coaching debate and teaching a variety of courses including Argumentation (also The Rhetoric of Black America, Group Discussion, Beginning Public Speaking, and Persuasion) at San Fernando Valley State College - now CSU at Northridge. I became interested in Adorno's discussion of the authoritarian personality (discussed in my last post). So far as I am aware there was no human subjects committee and I had no empirical training (still do not).
I decided to embark on an experiment. I had my students fill out Adorno's F test at the beginning of the class without their name and without an explanation of what the test was about. The class assignment was to give two well researched speeches (accompanied by outlines) arguing for and against the same proposition. At the end of the class, the students took the test again (unsigned and unexplained again). In the two classes I did this (not in the same year), there was a significant class shift away from the authoritarian personality.
The methodology of the test has been criticized; it surely could have been better constructed. Seana Shiffrin has argued that actors tend to take on aspects of roles they play. Here the change could be explained by the times the test was administered, by the students catching on to the test's purpose and the like. But I think the act of arguing both sides of the same question helps to undermine the authoritarian personality. At the same time I wonder what the effect of law school is on the personality of a law student - understanding it will have various effects - still there may be a general direction for most.
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