The Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What did Adorno and his colleagues find out instead of situational factors leading to the deaths in the holocaust?

Answer 1

• they found an innate dispositional personality type was responsible.

Question 2

Who created the California F scale (f For fascism) and why was it designed?

Answer 2

Adorno et al. created this to measure the varied factors that comprise the authoritarian personality.

Question 3

How are ppts tested regarding the F scale?

Answer 3

it involves a questionnaire wit statements that they can respond to, like a likert scale.

Question 4

What did Adorno et al (1950) investigate and what was the outcome?

Answer 4

they investigated the views of 2000 middle class, white americans for their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
They developed several scales, i.e F scale

Question 5

What are the 6 characteristics for someone who displays a high F-scale score?

Answer 5

• Extreme respect for (and submission to) authority
  -Society is weaker than it used to be and we need strong leaders to enforce traditional values, i.e love for country + family
  -contempt is shown for people of inferior social status
  -identify with strong people and have contempt for the weak
  -very conscious of their own status
  -world is viewed in black + white / right or wrong

Question 6

What did adorno et al. believe was a strong factor for developing an AP?

Answer 6

it was formed during childhood due to harsh parenting

Question 7

What are the three main aspects contributing to the development of an AP during childhood?

Answer 7

-strict discipline - an expectation of absolute loyalty
-impossibly high standards
-severe criticism of failings

Question 8

How do parents influence such physical punishment on their children?

Answer 8

They make it so the family the behaviour is a norm in society, with this passing on generationally.

Question 9

What did Altemeyer do to extend Adorno’s beliefs?

Answer 9

He refined the concept of the AP personality and identified three main aspects to it.

Question 10

what are the three aspects that comprise the scale of right wing authoritarianism (RWA) ?

Answer 10

Conventionalism
Authoritarian Aggression
Authoritarian Submission

Question 11

What is Conventionalism?

Answer 11

a belief that traditional social norms are best

Question 12

What is authoritarian aggression?

Answer 12

feelings of aggression towards people who break the traditional norms

Question 13

What is authoritarian submission?

Answer 13

doing whatever an authority tells you to do and not questioning what a legitimate authority requests.

Question 14

What did Elms + Milgram do in support of Adornos study?

Answer 14

they carried out a follow up study to milgram’s 1963 obedience study.

Question 15

What was the two steps to Elms + Milgrams follow up study?

Answer 15

1. they interviewed the most 20 obedient ppts (those who went to 450V)) and the 20 most defiant
2. they asked them to complete the MMPI (personality questionnaire) and the California F scale

Question 16

What three things did Elms + Milgram find out from their follow up study?

Answer 16

-they found that obedient ppts scored higher for authoritarianism
-the obedient ppts also saw the authority figure as a good person, unlike the learner.
-although most of the obedient ppts had characteristics that didn’t fit the AP. E.g they didn’t glorify their fathers and hadn’t experienced unusual levels of punishment during childhood

Question 17

What do the findings of Elms and Milgram’s follow up study suggest about the AP personality?

Answer 17

That it may not work for ppts in Milgram’s study, subsequently may not be a good explanation in general.

Question 18

What did Dambrun + Vatine do that supports Milgrams study?

Answer 18

They recreated it within a virtual reality world, where the ppts knew the shocks weren’t real.

Question 19

What did Dambrun + Vatine find from their study that supports the concept of authoritarianism?

Answer 19

the ppts who gave the highest shocks in the virtual reality world also scored the highest on the RWA.

Question 20

What does the finding from Dambrun + Vatine’s study suggest about Milgram’s study?

Answer 20

Suggests that it was accurate and that RWA is a crucial factor in explaining obedience in fake / real world situations.

Question 21

What did Middendorp + Meloen (1990) find out?

Answer 21

Found the level of education influences authoritarianism + obedience.
The more educated a person is the less likely they are to have an AP (negative correlation)

Question 22

What is the main issue with the AP explanation?

Answer 22

Despite it possibly explaining those who have an AP, it doesn’t explain why millions in Germany displayed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic behaviour. ( large no. of ppl less likely to all have an AP)

Question 23

what is the social identity theory approach to the obedience shown by German people in Nazi Germany?

Answer 23

German people identified with the Nazi state and scape-goated the ‘outgroup’ of jews.

Question 24

What does the issues regarding Adorno’s explanation suggest?

Answer 24

That it is limited as there are ‘better’ explanations of the holocaust, explaining the issues better.

Question 25

What was the methodological issue Greenstein 91969) identified with the F-scale?

Answer 25

that it is biased to people who select ‘agree’ to the statements, so if someone has a natural tendency to select ‘agree’ then they’d still be classed as having an AP ( a significant minority of ppts do this)