Social Influence-Authotarian Personality Flashcards
What is the authoritarian personality?
A distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority
What did Adorno et al. use in 1950 to measure different components that made up the authors rain personality?
The California F-scale
What did the F-Scale contain?
Statements which if agreed with was indicative of the authoritarian personality
An example of a statement in the F-scale?
“Rules are there for people to follow, not change”
How would you describe people who had an authoritarian personality?
-💭
- ⚫️⚪️
- 📝
- 🔺
- Rigid thinkers who obeyed authority 💭
- saw world as black and white ⚫️⚪️
- strict adherence to social rules 📝
- strict adherence to hierarchy 🔺
What did Adorno et al. Find out about people who scored highly on the F-Scale in regard to parenting style?
They tended to have been raised by parents who use an authoritarian parenting style
How did growing up in an authoritarian system affect children?
This system is the expected norm and these people will acquire the same authoritarian attitudes through a process of learning and imitation
How did Robert Altemeyer (1981) refine the concept of “Authoritarian personality”?
➡️🐦📝
He established “Right-Wing Authoritarianism” ➡️🐦📝
What 3 personality characteristics did Robert say high RWA people possess that predispose them to obedience?
- C
- A A
- A S
- Conventionalism
- Authoritarian aggression
- Authoritarian submission
What is Conventionalism?
Adherence to conventional norms and values
What is authoritarian aggression?
Aggressive feeling towards people who violate these norms
What is authoritarian submission?
Uncritical submission to legitimate authorities
How did Almeyer test the relationship between RWA?
An experiment where participants would self-inflict pain in the form of increasing levels of electric shocks if they were to make a mistake on a learning task
What do Almeyer discover in his experiment?
Significant correlation between RWA scores and level of shocks ppts were willing to give to themselves
What did the red button that experimenter would order participants to push at the end of the experiment for not trying in Altemeyer’s (1981) study say?
“Do not push this button unless instructed to do so”
What was found in regard to the red button 🚨?
Participants RWA score appeared to be irrelevant for this instruction as the bat majority did as they were told without question
Key study- Elms and Milgram (1966)
(Carried out a follow-up study using ppts who had previosly taken part in one of Milgram’s experiments 2 months before)
Procedure-
How many participants were used in total and what type of participants were used?
- 40 in total:
- 20 “Obedient” participants (who had continued to final shock level)
- 20 “defiant” participants (who refused to continue at some point in the experiment)
What 2 things would participants complete to specifically measure their levels of authoritarianism?
MMPI Scale (measures range of personality variables) and the California F-Scale
What were the participants also asked?
What would these question’s ask about?
- 👪
- 🔬
❓❓❓
A series of open-ended questions
- Asked about relationships with parents during childhood
- attitude towards experimenter (authority figure) and learner during Milgram’s original study
Elms and Milgram’s (1966)
findings
What did the results of the MMPI variables suggest?
Little difference between obedient and defiant participants
What did the F-Scale result show?
Found higher levels of authoritarianism among participants classified as obedient
What was found in regard to obedient participants and their relationship with their father during childhood?
Reported being less close with their father and would describe them with more negative terms
How did obedient participants view the experimenter in Milgram’s original study? ✨🙌🏾
More admirable
How did obedient participants view the learner in Milgram’s original study? 👎🏾
Less admirable in comparison to the experimenter
What did Elms and Milgram’s findings suggest?
The obedient group was higher on the trait of “authoritarianism”
Evaluation-
Research evidence for the Authoritarianism/obedience link?
What criticism did Elms and Milgram’s (1966g and Almeyer’s (1981) study’s receive?
⚡️⚡️⚡️
Suspicion concerning whether the shocks where real or fake
How did Dambeun and Vatine (2010) overcome this?
🎭 🎥 📺
Used an “immersive virtual environment” where an actor taking the role of the learner was filmed and recorded and displayed on a computer screen
What were the participant told about the experiment by Dambrun and Vatine (2010)?
The experiment was a stipulations and that shocks and victims reaction’s were not real but only stimulated
How would ppts respond in D & V’s (2010) experiment?
As if the situation was real
What correlation did D & V (2010) find?
Significant correlation between ppts RWA score and maximum voltage shock administered to victim
Higher RWA scores = obeyed the most
Evaluation:
Social context is more important
What did Milgram believe was the primary cause of differences in participants levels of obedience and what was least important?
Variations in the social context of the study (e.g. Proximity of the victim) and that variations in personality was the least important
What did Milgram feel cause ppts to obey or resist?
The specific social situations
What did Milgram (1974) say relying on explanation of obedience based purely on authoritarianism means?
It lacks the flexibility to account for variations in the study
Evaluation:
Differences between characteristics of authoritarian and obedient participants
What was found in regard to obedient participants and relationships with their parents which opposed stereotypical belief?
Many fully obedient participants reported having a very good relationship with their parents rather than having an overly strict family environment associated with the the authoritarian personality
What was unlikely given the large amount of fully obedient participants in Milgram’s study (1966) ?
That the vast majority would have grown up in such a harsh environment with a punative father
