Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What is the authoritarian personality/characteristics?

Answer 1

Extreme respect and submissiveness for authority and respect traditional values. Show contempt for those inferior to the, and have an inflexible view of the world and are likely to obey

Question 2

What is the psychodynamic explanation for Authoritarian Personality?

Answer 2

Childhood experiences create resentment and hostility in a child, they fear punishment so cannot express feelings to parents so they displace feelings on those who are perceived as weaker this is known as scapegoating.

• This explains the hared to those apart of other social groups or inferior to themselves

Question 3

What was Adorno et als procedure?

Answer 3

• Sample was more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups.
• Developed scale to measure AP (F-scale) or fascism scale

Question 4

What were Adorno’s findings?

Answer 4

Those higher on the scale identified with stronger people and were contemptuous of the weak. Conscious of their own status, and has black and white thinking with fixed stereotypes about other groups

-Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 5

What were the limitations of Adornos research (brief)

Answer 5

-Limited explanation for obedient behaviour in a majority of a country’s population
- Political bias Christie and Jahoda (1954)
- CP for support: authoritarianism unlikely predictor of obedience

Question 6

What were strengths of Adornos research (brief)

Answer 6

-Research support, Milgram and Elms

Question 7

What were limitations for Adornos research (depth)

Answer 7

Cannot explain obedient behaviour in majority of a country’s population. It wouldn’t explain all the German population having an authoritarian personality so the alternate view is that German people identified with the anti-Semitic nazi sate and scapegoated the Jews this is a social identity explanation limiting Adorno’s theory as alternate explanation is much more realistic in terms of explaining authoritarian personality for obedience of a country.

Another limitation is political bias, F-scale only measures tendency towards extreme form of right wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that the F scale is a politically biased representation of authoritarian personality. They both emphasise importance of compete obedience for political authority. Meaning. That this theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation accounting for obedience to authority across whole political spectrum.

COUNTER to Milgram and Elms support: HOWEVER, when analysing sub scales of the F scale, they found obedient p’s. Had a number of characteristics which weren’t similar to those on the F scale, they generally did not glorify their fathers and did not experience levels of unusual punishment and no hostility towards their mothers. Link between authoritarian and obedient is complex

Question 8

What were strengths of Adornos research? (Depth)

Answer 8

Research Support from Milgram with Elms, who interviewed a small sample of participants from the original obedience study and had been fully obedient. This group scored significantly higher on the F scale than a comparison group of 20 participants. These findings support Adorno’s view that obedient people may also show similar characteristics to those who have an authoritarian personality.