obedience: authoritarian personality (personality affecting obedience)

Question 1

What factor is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 1

Personality factor: somebody’s unique and stable responses to specific situations

Question 2

What is an authoritarian personality? (Traits)

Answer 2

Obsessed with their rank and status
Inflexible
Driven by stereotypes and prejudice
Extreme respect for and submissiveness authority

Question 3

Supporting evidence: Milgram

Answer 3

Milgram’s ppts were interviewed immediately after experimenter (exit interviews) and were asked questions to see whether personality was what led to obedience/dissent. Elms (Milgram’s assistant) noted people with ‘caring’ jobs eg teachers showed less obedience than those in technical jobs, eg engineers. Catholics showed more obedience than other religion groups, ppts who had more years in education tended to obey less. People in armed forces showed high obedience, but ex-officers showed less than non-officers.
Occupation could be linked. However, links made by Elms were not particularly strong. More investigation was needed.

Question 4

Supporting evidence: Milgram & Elms

Answer 4

Carried out further investigations by examining 2 groups ‘obedient group’ and ‘defiant group’, 20 ppts in each group chosen from previous studies, with their own responses used to group them. Defiant group showed more social responsibility. However, social responsibility might have led to obedience in that they obeyed those in authority for sake of society or led to defiance in that they would not be responsible for another person’s pain. Idea of social responsibility was not useful when considering personality. They put forward the idea of an authoritarian personality; those with this personality are said to admire rules, be distant from their fathers and be more likely to be in the military role.

Question 5

Supporting evidence: Blass

Answer 5

People high in authoritarian submission (giving in to authority) were more likely to obey. Blass also looked at when people watched a video of Milgram’s study, those with high level of authoritarianism were less likely to blame those punishing the learner than those without that high level of authoritarianism.