Indivisual Differences: Obedience: Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954) Flashcards
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
personalitys
one view of Obedience in Social psychology is that people are more prone to obey than others due to the nature of their personalitys ( also known as dispositional factors)
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Authoritarian personality
Adorno suggested that people with Authoritarian personalitys were more likley to be obedient than those who weren’t
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Adorno et al 1954
Is Theory was based off his research (adorno et al 1954)
- explored the Childhood and personalities of individuals using a variety of research methods. Including :
- case studies: such as Nazis as they had demonstrated great levels of obedience during the war. some had argued they were “just following orders”
- psychometric testing (F-scale)
- clinical interviews revealing situation aspects of their childhood such as strict parents ( more in high f-scale score than low)
He did his research on 2000 college students in the USA
as well as other American, white, non-jewish, middle class people such as teachers and nurses.
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Adorno’s F-Scale
The F-scale (F for fascism) was a psychometric test determine a person’s likelihood of having an authoritarian personality
Examples of questions (agree or disagree) on F-scale:
- young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down
- people can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong
- obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn
Which statement respondents were asked to decide whether they strongly agreed agreed disagreed etc
Highest scores strongly agree with statements and are said to have a more authoritarian personality
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Adorno findings / theory
Adorno believed that adult personalities and attitudes stem from childhood influences particularly actions of their parents (simular to Psychodynamic)
- people with authoritarian personalities had childhoods dominated by strict and punitive parents who demanded absolute obedience
- the typical parenting style identified by adorno features: extremely strict discipline, absolutely loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticisms
- it also is based on conditional love with parents afection for their children depending on how they behave
the theory states that due to this type of Childhood the defense mechanism displacement was used
- individuals with unable to express their hostility towards their parents for fear of punishment
- therefore children’s anger was displaced onto safer targets such as minority groups and those seamers being weak and unable to fight back (scapegoating)
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They value strength and perceived the world to be full of people who need to be defended as they were in childhood
this explains the central trait of obedience to higher authority and the dislike for people considered to be socially inferior or belonging to different social groups
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
High Score on f-scale characteristics
- conventionalism: strong belief in conventional values and suspicious of anyone who is different from the majority
- hostility to outgroups (mainly lower status) or anyone perceived as different to them and their in-group
- intolerance of ambiguity: preferring simple issues with yes / no answers the view things is either right or wrong (no Grey area)
- they are submissive to authority figures
- they believe that people can be divided into weak and strong and show intolerant to those who they consider different and weak
- authoritarian aggression: the belief that anyone who challenges authority should be dealt in an aggressive way EG capital punishment or public meetings
- obsessions with ranking status believing powerful and toughness are successful attributes to hold
Overall just be Rimmer
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
How authoritarian personality explains differences in levels of obedience overview
- authoritarian personalities value obedience and authority figures they believe it is essential and those who do not should be punished
- heavy belief in classes, ranks and social standards/ groups if authority figure is of a greater class than they will respect and obey them absolutely
- stripped parents and the fear of consequences they were influence for young age to be extremely obedient of why they would have strict punishment such as beatings if they disobeyed
- as they believed in absolute obedience and their parents love is based on their behavior they may show increased levels of obedience to try to gain their parents approval and affection (conditional love)
- due to their extreme belief in punishment they may fear if they do not obey authority figures they may face extreme punishments such as harsh corporal punishment
- they have stripped beliefs on what is right and wrong and believe everything is either yes or no with no grey area
- hostility to lower status or weak out groups
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Evidence +
Elms and Milgram 1966
vets shot admit bad farther
A study that supports this theory is Elms and milgram (1966)
- they interviewed two groups two months after a study with variations
- the define group (which stopped the experiment)
- the obedient group (which continued the experiment)
- both consisted of 20 participants each
- the obedient group had poor relations with their father EG beatings
- most were veterans: nearly every obedient said that they had shot a man showing they are more willing to punish those who they beleive did wrong
- every defiant subject who was a veteran denied it
This shows that the obedient group possibly had authoritarian personalities as they show key characteristics and relations with parents
- therefore this is evidence to support authoritarian personality Theory as it shows obedient ppts fitting the typical traits and relations of Authoritarian personalitys
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Evidence -
Hyman and Sheatsley (1954)
low ed = high f
HYMAN AND SHEATSLEY 1954
- they found that lower educational level was probably a better explanation of high f-scale scores than authoritarianism
- this therefore opposes authoritarian personality theory as it suggests that the F scale is an unreliable way of determining if somebody has authoritarian personality as low educational level is a better explenation of the high f-scale scores
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
How good is the Research +
Hyman and sheatsley 1954 supporting research reliability
Hyman and Sheatsley research that found lower education scored highly on f scale is a better explanation than being authoritarian.
is supported by
- Milgram found that less educated people were more obedient.
- this may be due to lower educational people having high obedience due to ignorance, as they do not know what some things on the F-scale mean, or are not aware they are obeying orders / there is an alternative
This makes the evidence opposing authoritarian personality Theory reliable as other studies have found results that supports the results of this study which is that lower education is a better explanation of high f-scale scores than authoritarianism
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
How good research -
f-scale circular explenation
This f scale was developed by adorno
this is a circular explanation as he subjectivly selected people he believed to have authoritarian personality traits, interviewed 2000 of them and then correlated these traits in the results to find out what authoritarian personality traits were ( anti-semitism, ethnocentricism, political–economic conservatism, potentially fascist etc.)
Essentially meaning he found only what he was looking for and may have missed other factors such as low education
This means that the f scale created by adorno is poor research to support authoritarian personality Theory as extraneous variables and confounding variables may have been overlooked decreasing the studies internal validity
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Limited Nazis and agency theory
Due to the example of Nazi Germany during the Second World War as it is extremely unlikely that millions of Germans have been Nazis because they all had authoritarian personality
This is due to people having individual differences and therefore highlights a limitation of the theory
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In agency Theory it is difficult to determine objectively when the agenda shift takes place and to determine if somebody is in the autonomous state or the eugenic state
However before terrier in personality Theory has developed a f-scale to determine if somebody has an authoritarian personality or not
therefore authoritarian personality series better than agency Theory due to being able to use the f-scale to objectively determine if somebody has authoritarian personality or not
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Outdated
When the F scale was completed its reflected the views of the time in the 50s when obedience was expected
now however it could mean old-fashioned rather than authoritarian
therefore it’s no longer credible in modern times and not applicable to people in the 21st century who wouldn’t be authoritarian they would simply Be old-fashioned
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
conclusion and ap
Alteneyer 1980s RWA
In conclusional for Italian personality Theory of a terrible application of Personality to obedience as it has unscientific origins in the F scale and limited evidence to support it with evidence opposing it being widely supported
It was also be noted that authoritarian personality theories f scale is extremely outdated
Therefore an application of authoritarian personality Theory is that it was modernized and redeveloped in the 1980s by Altermeyer
This replaced freudasm with modern ideas such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and is accepted today by psychologists
Showing that the idea of authoritarian personality Theory was clear enough and the idea seemed usefull enough to attempt to modernize it for modern day use
ID: OBEDIENCE
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno (1954)
Order
- E+ Milgram and elms 1966
- H- F-scale circular and unscientific
- L old fahsioned and agency theory
- conclusion (it bad) and Altemeyer
if time:
- E- Hyman and sheatsley 1954
- H+ above is supported so reliable
- L Nazis cant all be it
