Social Influence - Dispositional Explanations: The Authoritarian Personaility Flashcards
Situational explanations for obedience
Explanations that focus on the influences that stem from the environment in which the individual is found
Dispositional explanations for obedience
Explanation of individual behaviour caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual’s personality
Authoritarian personality
A type of personality susceptible to obeying people in positions of authority
Who carried out a study into the authoritarian personality?
Adorno et al (1950)
Sample of Adorno et al’s study
2000 white m/c Americans
What did Adorno et al interview the sample to find?
Their unconscious attitudes to other racial groups
What scale did Adorno et al develop to measure the authoritarian personality?
The F-scale (fascist scale)
Who did people who scored high on the f-scale indentify with?
“Strong” people
How did people who scored high on the f-scale treat people who scored lower than them?
With disrespect, seeing them a “weak”
How did people treat those in higher positions open the social hierarchy in Adorno et al’s study?
Treated them with admiration and respect
Style of those who scored high in f-scale
Had authoritarian style
Authoritarian style
Fixed and distinctive stereotypes about certain groups of people
What did Adorno et al find a strong correlation between?
Authoritarianism and prejudice
When does an authoritarian personality form according to Adorno et al?
In childhood
What aspect of childhood brings about the authoritarian personality?
Harsh parenting: strict discipline, high expectations, expectation of loyalty, criticism of failure and conditional love
What do childhood experiences of harsh parenting create according to Adorno et al?
Create hate and resentment, which they can’t show directly towards their parents
Where do people with authoritarian personality displace their feelings according to Adorno et al?
They displace their feelings onto people who they perceive to be weaker than them
Who carried out research support for Adorno et al’s research?
Milgram and Elms (1966)
Procedure of Milgram and Elms’ supporting research
Conducted interviews with small sample of fully obedient people who scored highly in f-scale
What did Milgram and Elms find a correlation between?
Correlation between authoritarian personality and obedience to authority
How does Adorno et al’s research have political bias? (Limitation)
F-scale measures tendency towards right-wing ideology so cannot account for whole political spectrum
Why can’t harsh parenting be the only cause for the authoritarian personality? (Limitation of Adorno et al’s research)
Because other extraneous variables may of played a part
What may be a better explanation for the Nazi’s obedience? (Limitation of Adorno et al’s study)
The Social Identity Theory which states that the majority of German people identified with the Nazis and displaced their feelings onto the Jews
Methodological problem of Adorno et al’s research
All questions were the same ‘direction’ so people just agreed with the interviewer without thinking
