authoritarian personality

Question 1

what does adorno propose?

Answer 1

Adorno (1950) proposed authoritarian personalities are more likely to obey.

Question 2

features of authoritarian personality

Answer 2

• preoccupied with power,
• submissive to authority figures,
• hostile towards people of lower status,
• inflexible in their beliefs and values,
• rule following,
• categorise people as ‘us’ or ‘them’,
• intolerant of ambiguity

Question 3

why do these personalities develop according to adorno? what does this create?

Answer 3

Due to receiving extremely harsh discipline from their parents during their upbringing.
Creates unconscious feelings of hostility which are displaced onto weaker others who cannot fight back and are therefore safe.

Question 4

how does the upbringing work?

Answer 4

• They cannot take out their anger on their parents because they fear them.
• Consciously they often idealise their parents and act in a submissive way to them as they are authority figures.
• Therefore they take out our anger and anxiety on those below us in the hierarchy.

Question 5

strengths and weaknesses of authoritarian personality

Answer 5

Strengths
- Research support for agency theory – Adorno, Milgram and Elms

Weaknesses
- Situational factors are more important than disposition
- Political bias to theory
- Education may have more impact on obedience than situation or disposition