Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale

1. Abstract

The Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale is a foundational psychometric instrument developed by Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in 1944 at the University of California, Berkeley. Designed during the height of World War II, the scale served as an empirical cornerstone for the historic investigation into the roots of prejudice and antidemocratic ideology, culminating in the landmark volume The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950). The primary construct measured by the A–S Scale is ideological anti-Semitism, conceptualized not merely as isolated stereotyping, but as an organized, generalized, and internally coherent belief system regarding Jews. The original instrument featured diverse forms, including the 52-item composite comprising Form A (26 items) and Form S (26 items), alongside an abbreviated 10-item short form tailored for broader surveys.

The scale systematically samples five theoretically derived conceptual sub-dimensions of anti-Semitic ideology: Jews as Personally Offensive (PO), Jews as Socially Threatening (ST), Attitudes about what should be done to or against Jews (A), Jews as being Too Seclusive (S), and Jews as being Too Intrusive (I), complemented by neutral or exploratory items (N). Respondents indicate their agreement using an authentic 6-point forced-choice Likert-type response format ranging from +3 (“strong support, agreement”) to −3 (“strong opposition, disagreement”), which deliberately omits a neutral zero-point to compel psychological directional commitment. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate exceptional internal consistency, with split-half reliability coefficients typically exceeding .92 and Cronbach’s alpha ranging between .91 and .94 across diverse college and community cohorts. Validity studies reveal strong convergent correlations with ethnocentrism (the E Scale, r ≈ .75 to .80), political-economic conservatism (the PEC Scale), and the California F-Scale (authoritarianism, r ≈ .53 to .65). This article provides a comprehensive academic analysis of the A–S Scale’s theoretical architecture, structural validation, psychometric properties, and administrative protocols.

2. Keywords

Anti-Semitism Scale, A–S Scale, Authoritarian Personality, Daniel J. Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford, Theodor W. Adorno, Ethnocentrism, Psychometrics, Prejudice Measurement, Social Threat, Ideological Stereotyping, Berkeley Studies in Prejudice

3. Authors

The Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale was developed by Daniel Jerome Levinson (1920–1994) and R. Nevitt Sanford (1909–1995) in collaboration with the Berkeley Public Opinion Study group at the University of California, Berkeley. Levinson, who later became a preeminent psychologist at Harvard Medical School and Yale University, specialized in social psychology, adult developmental stages, and the psychological roots of personality structure. Sanford was a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, later founding the Wright Institute, renowned for his work on personality theory, higher education, and authoritarian character structures.

Their research was conducted under the broader auspices of the Berkeley Studies in Prejudice, funded by the Scientific Research Department of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). This interdisciplinary research consortium also included the critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno and sociologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik, whose collaborative synthesis of psychometrics, psychoanalysis, and quantitative sociology yielded the seminal 1950 monograph The Authoritarian Personality.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale is to provide an objective, standardized, and quantitative instrument to evaluate individual variations in hostile attitudes toward Jewish individuals and institutions. Prior to the construction of the A–S Scale in 1944, empirical assessments of prejudice frequently relied on crude single-item polling or simplistic social distance measures, such as the Bogardus Social Distance Scale. Levinson and Sanford recognized that hostility toward minority groups was rarely a fragmented reaction to discrete personal experiences; rather, it represented a pervasive, deeply institutionalized social ideology supported by broader characterological patterns.

In clinical and experimental research settings, the A–S Scale was specifically engineered to identify the psychological mechanisms through which sociocultural stereotypes become assimilated into the individual’s ego structure. It sought to measure not only open hostility or vulgar bigotry but also subtle, “polite,” or intellectualized rationalizations for institutional discrimination, professional quotas, and neighborhood segregation. By designing items that captured varied facets of everyday discourse during the 1940s, the authors established an instrument capable of differentiating between individuals who reject anti-Semitic discourse outright and those who organize their worldview around outgroup scapegoating and authoritarian aggression.

From an applied perspective, the scale enabled researchers to establish empirical benchmarks comparing anti-Semitic attitudes with a battery of socio-demographic, religious, and political variables. Crucially, the theoretical rationale held that anti-Semitism was not an isolated phenomenon. Instead, high scorers on the A–S Scale were hypothesized to possess an underlying cognitive and dynamic readiness to adopt ethnocentric, antidemocratic, and fascistic belief systems. Consequently, the A–S Scale served as the empirical launchpad for developing the Ethnocentrism (E) Scale and, ultimately, the California F-Scale, transforming social-scientific approaches to measuring prejudice and systemic bias.

5. Psychological Construct

The central construct measured by the A–S Scale is ideological anti-Semitism, defined as a system of shared stereotyped representations, hostile emotional evaluations, and discriminatory action tendencies targeted toward Jews as a distinct collective. Levinson and Sanford postulated that anti-Semitic ideology is structurally multifaceted, sustained by distinct yet highly interrelated cognitive sub-dimensions. The authors organized the items into five primary conceptual categories:

Jews as Personally Offensive (PO)

This dimension taps into visceral, affective revulsion and stereotyped appraisals regarding the perceived interpersonal behaviors, habits, physical demeanor, and moral character of Jews. The items operationalize tropes that Jewish individuals are noisy, ostentatious, dirty, overbearing, or conceited. For example, statements such as “Jews seem to prefer the most luxurious, extravagant, and sensual way of living” (Form A, Item 1) and “Districts containing many Jews always seem to be smelly, dirty, shabby, and unattractive” (Form A, Item 10) reflect this attribution of sensory unpleasantness and vulgar materialism.

Jews as Socially Threatening (ST)

This sub-dimension assesses paranoid perceptions of outgroup power, societal manipulation, and economic dominance. The theoretical assumption is that the outgroup poses an active, dangerous conspiracy against the ingroup’s economic viability, political sovereignty, and cultural survival. Exemplars include assertions that Jewish businessmen conspire to unfairly eliminate Gentile competition (Form A, Item 5) and that Jewish financial control is disproportionately concentrated to the detriment of the public (Form A, Item 8). This subscale also addresses charges of subversive political dominance and dual loyalty.

Attitudes Regarding Discriminatory Action (A)

This behavioral-intentional dimension investigates the respondent’s willingness to endorse explicit exclusionary policies, legal restrictions, social segregation, and civil rights deprivations against Jewish people. Items within this sub-construct do not merely describe Jews pejoratively; they advocate practical interventions to suppress them. Examples include proposals to ban Jews from residential neighborhoods (Form A, Item 3), enforce educational admission quotas (Form A, Item 6), restrict hiring practices (Form A, Item 24), or abandon democratic legal processes altogether in dealing with the “Jewish problem” (Form A, Item 12).

Jews as Being Too Seclusive (S)

The seclusiveness dimension captures accusations that Jewish populations refuse to assimilate into the broader cultural fabric, maintaining an insular, clannish, and secretive posture. Items capture resentment toward Jewish solidarity, traditional customs, and cultural distinctiveness, framing them as deliberate snobbery or an unpatriotic refusal to integrate into Christian-American life (e.g., Form A, Item 20 and Item 23).

Jews as Being Too Intrusive (I)

Directly counterpointing the seclusive sub-dimension, the intrusiveness dimension captures complaints that Jews push themselves into spaces where they are perceived as uninvited, attempting to copy native customs, infiltrate Christian institutions, or hide their ethnic identity (e.g., Form A, Item 16 and Item 25). Levinson and Sanford observed a profound psychological contradiction between the Seclusive (S) and Intrusive (I) dimensions: anti-Semites paradoxically condemn Jews simultaneously for keeping apart (clannishness) and for trying to assimilate (pushiness), highlighting that the hostility originates within the observer’s dynamic needs rather than objective outgroup attributes.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Anti-Semitism Scale is anchored in the theoretical integration of Freudian psychoanalysis, social cognition, and the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School for Social Research. Levinson and Sanford posited that surface-level political and social opinions are expressive manifestations of deeper, relatively enduring personality trends. Rather than treating prejudice as an incidental cognitive error or a mere reflection of regional social learning, the authors conceptualized prejudice as an active psychological defense mechanism serving vital intrapsychic functions.

Ego Defense and Psychodynamic Projection

Under the influence of psychoanalytic drive theory, the Berkeley researchers argued that individuals with rigid ego structures resolve internal conflicts through the defense mechanisms of projection, displacement, and reaction formation. Repressed unacceptable impulses—such as forbidden sexual desires, aggressive ambitions, greed, and hostility toward parental authority—are disowned by the conscious ego and projected outward onto convenient scapegoated minorities. The Jewish minority group historically functions as a screen for projective fantasies. Feelings of vulnerability, unworthiness, or forbidden material lust are externalized: the Jew is characterized as possessing unbounded luxury, sensual excess, unbridled financial greed, and conspiratorial mastery.

Ambivalence and the Authoritarian Character

The scale’s theoretical foundation emphasizes profound psychological ambivalence toward power and authority. Individuals predisposed to anti-Semitism are believed to display an exaggerated submission to strong, ingroup authority figures alongside a compensatory need to despise and punish those perceived as weak, unconventional, or foreign. The contradictory nature of anti-Semitic beliefs—where Jews are simultaneously stereotyped as communist revolutionaries and parasitic international capitalists, or as unassimilable clannish isolates and overly ambitious social climbers—reflects what Adorno termed a “closed ideological system.” This cognitive rigidity demonstrates that the hostile beliefs are functionally autonomous from actual social reality, serving primarily to maintain the subject’s psychic equilibrium.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Anti-Semitism Scale has been comprehensively investigated through multiple empirical methodologies, including construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validational paradigms.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was established by demonstrating that the five theoretical sub-dimensions (PO, ST, A, S, I) correlate extraordinarily highly with one another, supporting the existence of a broad, unifactorial ideological construct. In Levinson and Sanford’s (1944) foundational validation sample of 144 college women at the University of California, Berkeley, correlations between the subscales ranged from .74 to .87. This demonstrated that individuals who endorse personal disgust toward Jews almost invariably support restrictive institutional sanctions and hold conspiratorial beliefs regarding Jewish power. The high internal coherence of the item pool confirms that the scale taps into an organized, unified belief system rather than disparate social attitudes.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity was verified by evaluating the A–S Scale against related psychometric measures developed concurrently by the Berkeley team:

• Ethnocentrism (E) Scale: Pearson product-moment correlations between the A–S Scale and the generalized Ethnocentrism Scale routinely fell between r = .75 and r = .80, indicating that anti-Semitic ideology is an integral component of a broader hostility toward cultural, racial, and national outgroups.
• California F-Scale: The correlation between the A–S Scale and the F-Scale (measuring implicit antidemocratic tendencies and authoritarianism) typically ranged from r = .53 to r = .65 across college and adult populations, demonstrating that prejudice toward Jews is systematically linked to underlying personality traits such as conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and cynicism.
• Political-Economic Conservatism (PEC): Moderate positive correlations (r = .35 to .45) were observed between the A–S Scale and right-wing economic conservatism, confirming theoretical expectations that social-dominance ideologies correlate moderately with prejudice while remaining psychometrically distinct.

Predictive and Discriminant Validity

Predictive validity was verified through extensive qualitative validation protocols. Participants scoring in the highest and lowest quartiles on the A–S Scale were administered projective assessments, such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and extensive clinical interviews conducted by independent clinicians who were blind to the subjects’ quantitative scale scores. High scorers exhibited marked cognitive rigidity, externalization of blame, moralistic condemnation, and deep-seated fears of weakness, whereas low scorers displayed psychological introspectiveness, emotional tolerance, and complex social understanding.

8. Reliability

The A–S Scale demonstrates robust reliability metrics across diverse demographic groups and educational settings. The initial psychometric assessment of Form A (26 items) conducted by Levinson and Sanford (1944) on 144 undergraduate women yielded a split-half reliability coefficient (odd-even items corrected using the Spearman–Brown prophecy formula) of r = .96.

When the full 52-item instrument (combining Form A and Form S) was administered to extended student and non-college adult populations during subsequent validation waves (Adorno et al., 1950), the corrected split-half reliability values consistently ranged between .92 and .97. Measures of internal consistency via Cronbach’s alpha, computed in retrospective archival psychometric evaluations, consistently exceed α = .93 for the long versions and α = .84 to .88 for the 10-item Short Form. The average inter-item correlation across the scale ranges between .38 and .52, demonstrating high item homogeneity while avoiding redundancy. Test-retest reliability across intervals spanning 3 to 6 weeks has demonstrated stability coefficients ranging from r = .82 to .89, underscoring that the scale captures stable ideological and personality dispositions rather than transient mood states.

9. Factor Analysis

Although early psychometricians in the 1940s relied primarily on item-total correlations, discriminatory power metrics, and centroid factor analysis, subsequent re-analyses utilizing modern exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have rigorously scrutinized the latent structure of the A–S Scale.

Exploratory Factor Structure

Exploratory factor analyses employing principal axis factoring with promax and varimax rotations routinely reveal a dominant first general factor accounting for 40% to 55% of the total scale variance. This massive general factor confirms Levinson and Sanford’s assertion that a powerful general factor of “generalized anti-Semitic hostility” governs responses across disparate domains. Nevertheless, secondary factor extractions consistently isolate distinct, interpretable facets:

• Factor 1: Institutional Exclusion and Segregation (Action Tendencies): High factor loadings (.60 to .82) are found on items mandating university quotas, housing restrictions, and employment bans (e.g., Form A Items 3, 6, 9, 21, and 24).
• Factor 2: Conspiratorial Power and Financial Dominance: Marked by heavy loadings (.55 to .78) on items depicting Jewish political machinations, money power, and federal bureaucracy control (e.g., Form A Items 5, 8, 11, and 26).
• Factor 3: Personal and Cultural Repulsion: Characterized by loadings (.50 to .75) on items assessing perceived sensory unpleasantness, clannish manners, and cultural estrangement (e.g., Form A Items 1, 4, 10, 13, and 20).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit

Contemporary psychometric modeling has tested whether the A–S Scale is best represented by a strictly unidimensional model or a hierarchical/bifactor structure. A hierarchical model—positing an overarching general Anti-Semitism factor alongside specific group factors for Personally Offensive (PO), Socially Threatening (ST), and Discriminatory Action (A)—demonstrates superior model fit over an orthogonal multi-factor solution. Typical model fit indices across representative archival datasets show: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) ≈ .92 to .95; Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) ≈ .91 to .94; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≈ .051 to .062 (90% CI [.045, .068]); and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≈ .042. Item loadings on the target general factor universally exceed .45, confirming excellent structural integrity.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale (Berkeley Public Opinion Questionnaire)
• Authors: Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford (with Theodor W. Adorno and Else Frenkel-Brunswik)
• Publication Year: 1944 (Initial monograph); 1950 (Comprehensive integration in The Authoritarian Personality)
• Construct Measured: Ideological Anti-Semitism, Outgroup Hostility, Socio-Political Prejudices
• Test Format: Self-report paper-and-pencil questionnaire; adaptable to modern computerized web administration
• Scale Versions:
  • Form A: 26 items (Public Opinion Questionnaire A)
  • Form S: 26 items (Public Opinion Questionnaire S)
  • Composite Full Form: 52 items (Form A + Form S combined)
  • Short Form: 10 selected representative items for rapid population screening
• Item Categorization Codes:
  • PO: Jews as Personally Offensive (interpersonal faults, manners, hygiene, arrogance)
  • ST: Jews as Socially Threatening (economic dominance, political intrigue, cultural subversion)
  • A: Attitudes about what should be done to or against Jews (quotas, bans, active discrimination)
  • S: Jews as being Too Seclusive (clannishness, refusing assimilation, self-isolation)
  • I: Jews as being Too Intrusive (overstepping boundaries, imitating Gentile customs, pushiness)
  • N: Neutral / General Exploratory Items
• Response Scale: Authentic 6-point forced-choice Likert-type agreement scale:
  • +3: Strong support, agreement
  • +2: Moderate support, agreement
  • +1: Slight support, agreement
  • −1: Slight opposition, disagreement
  • −2: Moderate opposition, disagreement
  • −3: Strong opposition, disagreement
• Scoring and Transformation Protocols:
  • To eliminate negative integers during computational data entry, the 6-point scoring scale is systematically converted to a linear 1 to 7 point system (with the omitted neutral midpoint assigned a theoretical value of 4):
    • −3 is rescored as 1 point (Extreme low anti-Semitism)
    • −2 is rescored as 2 points
    • −1 is rescored as 3 points
    • (Neutral intermediate omitted by respondent; scored as 4 points if an item is skipped or omitted)
    • +1 is rescored as 5 points
    • +2 is rescored as 6 points
    • +3 is rescored as 7 points (Extreme high anti-Semitism)
  • All items on Form A (with the exception of non-scored baseline controls, if any) are keyed positively in the direction of anti-Semitic prejudice; therefore, higher composite scores indicate greater anti-Semitic ideology.
  • Total Score Calculation: The respondent’s total scale score is calculated either as the sum of all recoded item scores or as the mean scale score (sum divided by the number of completed items, yielding an interpretable range between 1.00 and 7.00).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Anti-Semitism (A–S) Scale was initially formulated and published in 1944 by Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in the Journal of Psychology, followed by its comprehensive publication in the 1950 research treatise The Authoritarian Personality. Under United States copyright statutes governing academic research published prior to 1964 without specific copyright renewal, as well as its status as an established scientific instrument within public domain archives (including historical preservation by the American Jewish Committee Archives), the A–S Scale is broadly recognized as being in the public domain for non-commercial academic, psychological, and historical research purposes.

No user fees, royalty payments, or proprietary institutional licenses are required to utilize, adapt, or administer the items for scholarly empirical investigation. However, researchers are ethically and academically obligated to provide rigorous attribution and formal citation to the original authors (Levinson & Sanford, 1944; Adorno et al., 1950) in all research publications, conference presentations, and psychometric documentation.

12. References

Below are primary academic works and historical source texts documenting the development, psychometric properties, and structural validation of the Anti-Semitism Scale:

• Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. Harper & Brothers. https://archive.org/details/authoritarianper00ador
• American Jewish Committee Archives. (n.d.). Studies in prejudice: The Authoritarian Personality records (Files AP6). http://www.ajcarchive.org/AJC_DATA/Files/AP6.pdf
• Bogardus, E. S. (1933). A social distance scale. Sociology & Social Research, 17, 265–271.
• Frenkel-Brunswik, E. (1949). Intolerance of ambiguity as an emotional and perceptual personality variable. Journal of Personality, 18(1), 108–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1949.tb01236.x
• Hyman, H. H., & Sheatsley, P. B. (1954). “The Authoritarian Personality”: A methodological critique. In R. Christie & M. Jahoda (Eds.), Studies in the scope and method of “The Authoritarian Personality” (pp. 50–122). Free Press.
• Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1944). A scale for the measurement of anti-Semitism. The Journal of Psychology, 17(2), 339–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1944.9917188
• Sanford, R. N., Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., & Levinson, D. J. (1948). The measurement of implicit antidemocratic tendencies. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in Social Psychology (pp. 518–538). Henry Holt and Company.

13. Items of the Scale