The Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What is meant by the authoritarian personality?
(Adorno)

Answer 1

A type of personality which makes people susceptible to obeying authority. These individuals view society as weak and so believe that we need strong and powerful leaders that must be obeyed.

Question 2

Give 5 characteristics of the authoritarian personality.
(Adorno)

Answer 2

-Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong.
-A negative view of people in general.
-A belief in simple answers.
-A need for strong leadership.
-A preoccupation with violence.

Question 3

Outline Adorno et al’s study on the authoritarian personality.

Answer 3

-Studied over 2000 middle class white Americans.

-F-scale used to measure authoritarian personality - this required pps to rate the extent of their own agreement to certain statements.

-Found that those who scored high on the F-scale leaned more towards having the authoritarian personality and identified with ‘strong’ people.

-People who scored high on the F-scale were also conscious of status and showed extreme respect to those of a higher status.

Question 4

What is meant by dispositional explanations of authority

Answer 4

An internal explanation of why one is obedient for example, personality.

Question 5

What is one strength the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience?

Answer 5

1. Research support

Elms and Milgram interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience study and had been fully obedient. They all completed the f-scale as part of the interview. These 20 pps scored significantly higher on the f-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient pps.

These findings support Adorno’s view that obedient people show similar characteristics to people who have an authoritarian personality.

Question 6

What are two limitations of the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience?

Answer 6

1. Cannot be applied to all cases of obedience
   Cannot be used to explain real life situations of obedience. For example, it is highly unlikely that the whole of Germany had an authoritarian personality during Nazi occupation. Instead, many Germans worried about their future and so followed the majority by placing their fear onto a minority group of people through the process of scapegoating.

Therefore, such a theory is a limited explanation for some examples of obedience.

2. Education may determine authoritarianism and obedience.

Research has generally found that less-educated people are more obedient than well-educated people. Milgram found that pps with lower levels of education tended to obey the scientist more in his original study on obedience than those with higher levels of education.

Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the authoritarian personality is not responsible for obedience but rather how educated an individual is.