Social Influence - Dispositional Explanations: The Authoritarian Personaility

Question 1

Situational explanations for obedience

Answer 1

Explanations that focus on the influences that stem from the environment in which the individual is found

Question 2

Dispositional explanations for obedience

Answer 2

Explanation of individual behaviour caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual’s personality

Question 3

Authoritarian personality

Answer 3

A type of personality susceptible to obeying people in positions of authority

Question 4

Who carried out a study into the authoritarian personality?

Answer 4

Adorno et al (1950)

Question 5

Sample of Adorno et al’s study

Answer 5

2000 white m/c Americans

Question 6

What did Adorno et al interview the sample to find?

Answer 6

Their unconscious attitudes to other racial groups

Question 7

What scale did Adorno et al develop to measure the authoritarian personality?

Answer 7

The F-scale (fascist scale)

Question 8

Who did people who scored high on the f-scale indentify with?

Answer 8

“Strong” people

Question 9

How did people who scored high on the f-scale treat people who scored lower than them?

Answer 9

With disrespect, seeing them a “weak”

Question 10

How did people treat those in higher positions open the social hierarchy in Adorno et al’s study?

Answer 10

Treated them with admiration and respect

Question 11

Style of those who scored high in f-scale

Answer 11

Had authoritarian style

Question 12

Authoritarian style

Answer 12

Fixed and distinctive stereotypes about certain groups of people

Question 13

What did Adorno et al find a strong correlation between?

Answer 13

Authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 14

When does an authoritarian personality form according to Adorno et al?

Answer 14

In childhood

Question 15

What aspect of childhood brings about the authoritarian personality?

Answer 15

Harsh parenting: strict discipline, high expectations, expectation of loyalty, criticism of failure and conditional love

Question 16

What do childhood experiences of harsh parenting create according to Adorno et al?

Answer 16

Create hate and resentment, which they can’t show directly towards their parents

Question 17

Where do people with authoritarian personality displace their feelings according to Adorno et al?

Answer 17

They displace their feelings onto people who they perceive to be weaker than them

Question 18

Who carried out research support for Adorno et al’s research?

Answer 18

Milgram and Elms (1966)

Question 19

Procedure of Milgram and Elms’ supporting research

Answer 19

Conducted interviews with small sample of fully obedient people who scored highly in f-scale

Question 20

What did Milgram and Elms find a correlation between?

Answer 20

Correlation between authoritarian personality and obedience to authority

Question 21

How does Adorno et al’s research have political bias? (Limitation)

Answer 21

F-scale measures tendency towards right-wing ideology so cannot account for whole political spectrum

Question 22

Why can’t harsh parenting be the only cause for the authoritarian personality? (Limitation of Adorno et al’s research)

Answer 22

Because other extraneous variables may of played a part

Question 23

What may be a better explanation for the Nazi’s obedience? (Limitation of Adorno et al’s study)

Answer 23

The Social Identity Theory which states that the majority of German people identified with the Nazis and displaced their feelings onto the Jews

Question 24

Methodological problem of Adorno et al’s research

Answer 24

All questions were the same ‘direction’ so people just agreed with the interviewer without thinking