Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What is the authoritarian personality

Answer 1

It is a collection of traits/depositions developed from strict/rigid parenting

Question 2

Characteristics of authoritarian personality

Answer 2

• They would have had harsh, dogmatic and distant parents
• They tend to be intolerant of others, feels insecure in their opinions and beliefs, and are obedient and submissive towards authority
• Growing up assuming this level of obedience is the expected norm
• They will also show contempt for those with inferior status

Question 3

Authoritarian questionnaire

Answer 3

• This became known as the F-scale
• It measures different aspects of personality: conventionalise and preoccupation with power

Question 4

Adorno et al (1950)- authoritarian questionnaire

Answer 4

• He investigated the causes of obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle-class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes to other racial groups
• He found that people with authoritarian personality (those who scored highest on the scales) identified with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the weak
• They were very conscious of their own and others’ status, showing excessive respect and servility to those of a higher status
• There was also a positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 5

Origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 5

• Research indicates that individuals with a very strict upbringing by critical and harsh parents were most likely to develop an authoritarian personality
• Adorno believed that this was because the individual was not able to express hostility towards their parents, and as a result would then displace this aggression into safer targets, namely those who are weaker, such as ethnic minority groups

Question 6

Elms and Milgram- research support for authoritarian personality

Answer 6

• The sample consisted of 20 obedient and 29 disobedient participants, from Milgram’s original experiment
• Each participant complete the F-scale, to measure their levels of authoritarianism and were interviews about their relationship with their parents and thoughts in the experimenter in Milgram’s original experiment
• The obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale. As well as this, the obedient participants were less close to their fathers and were more likely to admire the experimenter
• These results highlight a relationship between high levels of authoritarianism personality and obedient behaviour

Question 7

Evaluation of authoritarian personality

Answer 7

• Impossible to draw conclusions based on correlational research, and as a result cannot conclude obedience was caused by depositional factors such as authoritarian personality
• Self-report questionnaire may lead to social desirable responses occurring, reducing validity
• Authoritarian personality does not explain a whole social group’s prejudices. It assumes that every member of the Nazis would have been authoritarian personality, which seems quite unlikely
• There are also criticisms of cultural and gender bias in Adorno’s sample size