I&G the authoritarian personality

Question 1

Context- what was happening during this time?

Answer 1

Rise of fascism (far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology & movement, dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition)

1930s- Germany

Extreme right wing/ authoritarian views.

Millions of Jewish individuals murdered- genocide- Deliberate extermination of a race, nation, etc.”

Jewish academic migration.

Question 2

What did Marx predict?

What did the global crisis result in?

Answer 2

capitalism would lead to financial crisis and “pauperization”(process of making people very poor)

which in turn would lead to proletarian revolt (where the working class attempt to overthrow the political system.)

Result- The Wall Street Crash- which instead lead to increased subservience (obeying others) & alignment to power.

Question 3

What does ideology mean?

Answer 3

An ideology is “an organization of opinions, attitudes, and values – a way of thinking about man and society” (p. 2)

Question 4

What are cultural ideologies?

Answer 4

They are represented and reproduced in culture (e.g., news, entertainment, propaganda, etc.), “ideologies have an existence independent of any single individual” (p. 2)

Question 5

Ideological attractiveness- When will be find certain ideologies attractive?

Answer 5

ideologies have for different individuals, different degrees of appeal, a matter that depends upon the individual’s needs and the degree to which these needs are being satisfied or frustrated” (p. 2)

They may be temporal- change as we get older.

Question 6

Individual ideologies-

what do we like them to match up with?

What is TAPs major hypothesis?

Answer 6

We like things to match up to our template of the world- there are pressures for consistency.

Question 7

What are “needs”?

Answer 7

“The forces of personality are primarily needs (drives, wishes, emotional impulses) which vary from one individual to another in their quality, their intensity, their mode of gratification, and the objects of their attachment…

There are primitive emotional needs, there are needs to avoid punishment and to keep the good will of the social group, there are needs to maintain harmony and integration within the self” (p. 5)

Question 8

What is personality largely?

Answer 8

Largely latent, becoming manifest in particular ways in particular contexts

Latent characteristics- things we claim are within us that lead to the manifest characteristics in certain situations.
Manifest characteristics- things you show.

Depending on our situations/ circumstances- depends on the latent characteristics

Question 9

What affects our personality?

Answer 9

Experience

Personality evolves under the impact of the social environment

Question 10

Impressionable youths- what did Freud say about this?

Answer 10

Freud- we have certain formative years- more influenced at younger ages- impressionable- teenage years/ toddler years- personality is moulded.

Most of the time we are resistant to change if the environment stays the same- however if things change dramatically- your personality may change.

Question 11

What else affects personality?

Answer 11

Society-

Families- have different values/ parenting styles / political views/ economic status/ - which can influence our personalities/ how they change

Question 12

Social psychological ideology?

Answer 12

“When the opinions, attitudes, and values of numerous individuals are examined, common patterns will be discovered” that additionally bear similarities to cultural ideologies, e.g., fascism.

Question 13

A psychological (individual) approach

What approach is this?

Answer 13

The “general approach” was “to consider personality as an agency through which sociological influences upon ideology are mediated.

If the role of personality can be made clear, it should be possible better to understand which sociological factors are the most crucial ones and in what ways they achieve their effects” (p. 6)

If we control ideologies and influence them= we can make people less fascist/ authoritarian- liberal etc….

Question 14

When does the authoritarian personality appeal?

Answer 14

Is appealing when people’s psychological needs feel met by ‘bowing up while kicking down’, i.e., obeying ‘father figures’ and dealing firmly with perceived threats to the status quo

Bicyclist idea- paying deference to your superiors- those who are powerful etc- authority figures- not rebelling. Instead pedalling furiously- and kicking those who are further down than you. How many of us are willing to do this?

Question 15

What was The Authoritarian Personality (TAP) sample?

Answer 15

Over 2000 white, non-Jewish, native-born non-fascist Americans; predominantly middle-class, relatively well educated, and youngish

Deliberate exclusion of minority groups (Didn’t include Jewish people- as were interested in who might persecute Jews)

Recruited via formal organisations

Question 16

What are the different scales used?

Answer 16

Anti-Semitic (AS) scale

Ethnocentrism (E) scale

Political and Economic Conservatism (PEC) scale

Potential for Fascism (F) scale

Question 17

They claimed to use masked concept capture

What is this?

Answer 17

“care was taken to allow the subject ‘a way out,’ that is to say, to make it possible for him to agree with such a statement while maintaining that he was not ‘prejudiced’ or ‘undemocratic.’”

Question 18

The Anti-Semitic personality

What is this?

Answer 18

Readiness to support or oppose Anti-Semitic ideology, a “broad system of ideas including”:

Measured Negative opinions regarding Jews,

Hostile attitudes toward them, and

‘Moral’ values which permeate the opinions and justify the attitudes

Question 19

Anti-Semitic sub scales

What did they reveal?

Answer 19

These are the sorts of things that the scales revealed about anti-semitic people.

Offensive- happy to say anti-semitic jokes/ insults- portray jews in derogatory (showing a disrespectful attitude) ways.

Felt threatened by the Jews/ their practises.

Held attitudes- what should be done to Jews.

Seclusion- believe jewish people stick to themselves/ isolate themselves- don’t integrate with society.

Intrusive- view they stick their nose into everything/ take the best jobs/ take the best homes etc.

Question 20

What is the Ethnocentric personality?

Answer 20

Readiness to support or oppose ideologies incorporating in-group/out-group hostility (glorification of ones own group & discrimination of other group)

Anti-black

Anti-minorities-

‘Patriotic’
Ingroup favouring and out-group derogatory

Question 21

Political & Economic Conservatism scale

What did this measure?

Answer 21

An attachment to “things as they are”; a resistance to social change

Also elements of individual liberty and personal responsibility (and opposition to state ‘interference’ with such things)

Question 22

Recursive triangulation

What method is this & what was it used to do?

Answer 22

Triangulation- have more than one source of information.
Recursive- do things again and again

Methodological triangulation- have interviews/ surveys/ questionnaires/ experiments/ observations- lots of methods and then try to get them to point towards the same thing.

They got people with high scores & low scores & middle- and interviewed them broadly about childhood/ things they like etc.
Looking for subtle discriminators.

Idea if you are high in authoritarianism/ fascism- are they other areas that you are high in that discriminate you from other people with lower scores that are further away than saying do you hate jews/ black people

Question 23

What is the F scale?

Answer 23

Potential for “Fascism”

Target-neutral items

Ideologically-neutral items

Based on Ethnocentrism differentiators

All pro-trait

Nine (or 10) clusters

It’s about broader attitudes that we can use to predict peoples anti semitism/ racism/ exclusionism/ ethnocentrism attitudes. It was supposed to be ideologically neutral- neither left or right wing

Question 24

What are the F scale clusters?

Answer 24

Conventionalism- Conservatism- liking the way things are for them at the present time. Don’t like change/ challenge/ threatens present.

Authoritarian submission- Bowing to the authorities- whether religious/ political/ educational authorities.

Authoritarian aggression- Being willing to be aggressive to those you are told to be aggressive towards.

Others! The other characteristics they thought were associated with the authoritarianism personality.

Question 25

What does conventionalism mean?

Answer 25

Conventionalism- Conservatism- liking the way things are for them at the present time. Don’t like change/ challenge/ threatens present.

Question 26

The prototypical authoritarian

What are some characteritsics?

Answer 26

Has aggressive impulses but he dare not direct them at members of the in-group.
Can direct aggression against minorities if he believes the minorities are themselves aggressive and so deserve to be attacked…
The direct expression is justified by the supposed sexual and aggressive nature of his out-group targets…
The prejudiced person is exceptionally concerned with status and success and rather little concerned with solidarity and intimacy…
[T]he authoritarian personality…is not given to reflection or introspection.
He does not strive for insight into his own psychological operations…When things go wrong…it is because of external forces

Question 27

F scale- analysis?

Answer 27

Good reliability

Single factor

Very strong correlation (.75) with E-Scale- with potential fascism scale & potential ethnocentrism scale.

Strong correlation (.57) with PEC & relatively strong correlation with the political and economic conservatism scale.

In the final analysis- all the scale have good reliability (if you use the same measure twice- you will get similar responses- test-retest reliability)

Inter-rater reliability is when you measure it- then someone else measures it and you get the similar sorts of scale.

Cross measure reliability- if you have two different versions of the same measure-then they should converge/ convergent validity.

Question 28

Conclusions- about the different scales used?

Answer 28

Excellent samples
Huge and varied, including (but not exclusively) students.
Excellent methods
Breadth and depth. Multi-method. Multi-revised.
Excellent focus
Not ‘benign’ in-group preference (“We’re better than you - even though you may be okay, too”) but ‘genuine’ prejudice: “Oppress the Jews, Blacks, etc.”
Excellent results
A-S, E, PEC and F always covary. Prediction of real behaviour.

Question 29

What things did Altemeyer come up with?

Answer 29

Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)
‘Authoritarian dominance’-

Question 30

Characteristics of right wing authoritarians (RWA)?

Answer 30

1) Submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society

2) Aggression in the name of those authorities

3) Conventionalism

Question 31

What did Altemeyer say right-wing authoritarianism is?

Answer 31

“I am using ‘right-wing’ in a psychological sense of submitting to authorities” (Altemeyer, 1981, p. 152)

Excessive submission (etc.) to left-wing establishment authorities is ‘RWA’- doing whatever the established authorities tell you to do!

Excessive submission to opposition authorities is LWA, even if Nazi???

Question 32

What is social dominance orientation?

Answer 32

“The extent to which one desires that one’s in-group dominate and be superior to out-groups” (p. 742)

The idea that some people differ from other people- in how much they like their ingroups to dominate. Some people- its important that e.g. america should be the best/ britain should be the best- and should be above the inferior countries.

Question 33

What is an example of modern The Authoritarian Personality (TAP) & Brexit?

Answer 33

collective narcissism/ RWA & SDO

lead to threat of immigration

Leads to Brexit Vote

Question 34

What development was there on the Social Dominance Orientation Measure?

Answer 34

They say there are two distinguishable aspects to social dominance orientation- there are dominance (measured by the items above) and also Anti-egalitarianism- not liking equality.

An ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on the bottom

Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups

No one group should dominate in society*

Groups at the bottom are just as deserving as groups at the top*

Question 35

Social Dominance Orientation
Anti-egalitarianism

What is this?

Answer 35

Group equality should not be our primary goal

It is unjust to try to make groups equal

We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups*

We should work to give all groups an equal chance to succeed*

Not liking equality- thinking that there will always be superior and inferior groups- there will always be competition- so you therefore don’t want equality- you don’t believe it you are anti-egalitarian and also want to be in the better group.