1.2.3 Authoritarian personality Flashcards
What is an authoritarian personality?
An authoritarian personality tends to show extreme respect for authority, status and hierarchies; despises those they consider to be ‘weak’; has conventional attitudes towards gender, sexuality, race etc. is rigid in their beliefs; is justice-focused; is likely to have right-wing political views.
What is authoritarian personality likely a result of?
An authoritarian personality is likely to be the result of harsh parenting in which discipline was a key feature and expectation of ‘perfect’ behaviour is common i.e. the child is shown love as long as they behave exactly how the parent wants them to behave.
Adorno et al’. (1950) procedure.
/Adorno et al. (1950) developed a questionnaire called the F-Scale (fascist scale) to test whether someone had an authoritarian personality
/He studied more than 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
/Some examples from the F-Scale are:
/Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn
/Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished
Adorno et al’. (1950) findings.
/Those who scored high on the F-Scale identified with strong people, had contempt for the weak, admired high-status individuals and exhibited ‘black and white’ views
/There were strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
Evaluation of authoritarian personality strengths.
/Elms & Milgram interviewed a small sample of Milgram’s original participants who had fully obeyed and found that when participants completed the F-Scale they scored significantly higher than those participants who had disobeyed
/There is real-world evidence for the authoritarian personality as seen in the behaviour of right-wing dictators such as Mussolini
Evaluation of authoritarian personality negative.
/Extreme left-wing personalities also show high levels of authoritarianism e.g. Stalin
/A self-report is open to social desirability and misuse: Greenstein (1969) stated that it was possible to get a high score just by putting ‘agree’ as your answers which would invalidate the F-scale
