Authoritarianism,religiosity and reactions to deviance

A modified F-Scale and a deviance-control scale were administered to a sample of 116 police science students and a random representative sample of 91 state university students. No overall relationship was found between respondents' preference to control deviance and their authoritarianism, nor did the F-Scale discriminate between the two groups. However, the police sample favored the control of deviance significantly more. Evidence of response bias to the F-Scale was also found. It was concluded that the source of the criminal sanction usually typified as moral indignation, was more a cognitively based evaluation than an emotionally based reaction.