Authoritarian Personality Theory (prejudice - Indiv Diffs) Flashcards
Who proposed the idea of authoritarian personality?
-Adorno et al 1950
What did Adorno et al suggest about prejudice?
-Prejudice due to an individuals personality type
-Deep seated personality traits predisposed some individuals to be highly sensitive to totalitarian and anti-democratic ideas and prone to being prejudicial
-high AP = high prejudice
What test is used to determine whether someone has an authoritarian personality?
-F scale test
What are some elements of AP type?
-Blind allegienance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
-Belief in aggression towards those who don’t have conventional thinking/different
-Negative view of people in general
-need strong leadership
-Resist creative ideas
-Black and white view
-Project own inadequacy onto scape goat group
How does the f scale test link to the elements of AP?
-Questions correlated to one of elements
Give 3 examples of statements from the test
- Businessman and manufacturer more important to country than artists and writers
-Every person should have complete faith in a supernatural being who he obeys
-An insult to our Honor should be punished
Who is most likely to develop AP?
-Those with strict upbringing
-critical and harsh parents
-not able to express hostility towards them
-displace aggression onto weaker targets (ethnic minorities)
-conditional love - success. Don’t show resentment due to fear of punishment from parents. Adult - show displacement onto inferior groups
-in and out groups
What other traits are those with AP predisposed to?
-Fascist
-Ethnocentrism
-Obsesseed with rank and status
-submissiveness to authority figures
-occupied with power and toughness
Evaluation
EACH
Evidence/application
-Hartmann 1977: events at time lead to certain views. Scale not much use today. Scale ‘Victorian values’ and attitudes considered old fashioned when made. Can’t be sure relevant to today’s society. What is AP may not be applicable today. Could mean just old fashioned.
Comparisons/credibility
-Doesn’t explain how social groups like nazis can be prejudiced. Suggest all members have AP which is unlikely. Anti-semitism in a decade, too short for families to have new ways of raising children.
How good is the research?
-Based on empirical research (Adorno) research project. Interviews. Shared common characteristics. F scale validated by discrimination validation, conformity methods clincial interviews etc. personality inventory, key features of AP. 30 items, issues like obedience, respect for authority, aggression. Obj and scientific tool
-Adorno had limited sample of whitel middle class from California. Can’t be applied to other socio-economic or cultural groups. Info on childhoods was retrospective. Lowers validity
-acquiescence bias: greenstein - questions worded same direction. Can get high score by ticking same box. Agree with everything. Confounding variable.
