The Role of Authoritarian Personality Syndrome in Quality of Communication (A Cultural Approach)

Methods

In a study (N=111) conducted among Dutch and German Maastricht University FPN students, participants were asked to measure the levels of quality for their last communications with both an intercultural and an intracultural stranger, along with a personality trait questionnaire and a questionnaire about their personal experiences with parenting styles. Results: The authoritarian personality syndrome did not prove as a successful predictor of quality in communication, meanwhile correlations of different significances were observed for the levels of anxiety and uncertainty and this personality syndrome.

The results provided partial support for the hypotheses of the study. Initially, the quality of communication was found lower with strangers from different cultures, as examined by measuring the difference between the scores in the two cultural conditions. Furthermore, authoritarianism demonstrated increased correlations with higher levels of uncertainty for both cultural conditions (p=0.053 and p=0.036 for intercultural and intracultural conditions respectively), in comparison to higher levels of anxiety (p=0.105 and p=0.304).

The results of the study inspired a theoretical discussion on the relationship between authoritarianism as a personality syndrome and the cognitive/affective processes of communication. Finally, a weak correlation was found between authoritarian parenting styles and authoritarian personality traits.