The authoritarian personality Flashcards
What did Marx say capitalism would lead to?
- financial crisis
- where proletarian revolt
- but acc, increased subservience + alignment to power + kicking down
What is fascism?
A system of extreme right-wing or authoritarian views
What is a genocide?
Deliberate extermination of a race/ nation etc
Which academics fled Germany before action started taking place?
Berkeley group
- thomas W. Adorno
- Else Frenkel-Brunswik
- Daniel Levinson
- Nevitt Sanford
According to Adorno, what is personality?
- made up of primarily needs
- -> drives, wished, emotional impulses
- -> these needs are primitive emotional needs to avoid punishment/ keep good will in social group
What are dispositions?
- Persisting forces of personality which helps to determine response in various situations
- EG: people may have a disposition to have a particular political stance
- -> pattern they express is their deep-lying trends in their personality
How does experience affect personality?
- person can have a disposition and certain environmental activities can trigger the pre-disposition = behaviour is carried out
- most impressionable = Youths/ adolescents –> child training in a setting of family
How does society affect personality?
- helps make sense of large changes like genocides
- it will be changes in the societal level eg policies/ institutions which will drive the bearing of different kinds of personality to develop within society
At an individual level, what is an ideology?
- an organisation of opinions, attitudes and values - a way of thinking about man and society
At a social level, what is an ideology?
When opinions, attitudes and values of numerous individuals are examined = common patterns
At a cultural level, what is an ideology?
- ideologies have an existence independent of any single individual
- where the ideologies have for different individuals, different degrees of appeal
Why does the attractiveness of an ideology matter?
- depends on the individual’s needs and the degree to which these needs are being satisfied
= so get insight
What is the psychological/ individual approach to personality?
P = an agency through which sociological influences upon ideology are mediated
- if personality made clear = better understand sociological factors + their effects
What is the “bicycle characteristic”?
- people tried to create a class of their own by looking down on other people but at the same time bowing down to people above them …?
What is false consciousness?
eg: saying there is no oppression for women because they as a woman have not experienced any
What evidence is there supporting those who score high on TAP are fascist; Meloen 1961?
- several fasicists groups scored high on TAP
- -> British national front members
- -> Former members of the German SS
- -> American ‘super-patrioit’ nationalist
What was good about Meloen’s 1961 TAP sample?
- large sample, white, non-jewish, predominantly middle class
- good representation basically and didn’t include minority groups = since studying likely oppressors
What is does recursive methodological triangulation mean?
- formed a method
- tried it out
- altered it
- tried it again
- used a range of methods to collect data
What are the different scale associated with TAP + Fascism?
- Anti-Semitic - AS scale
- Ethnocentrism - E scale
- Political and Economic conservatism - PEC Scale
- Fascism - F scale
Describe the AS scale
- looks at readiness to support or oppose anti-semitic ideology
- -> negative opinions regarding jews
- -> hostility towards them
- -> ‘moral’ values which permeate the opinions and justify the attitudes
- has sub-scales
What are the AS sub-scales?
- offensive
- threatening
- Attitudes - about what should be done to or against Jews
- Seclusion
- Intrusion
Describe the E scale
- readiness to support or oppose ideologies incorporating in-group/ out-group hostility
- -> Anti-black
- -> Patriotic = in-group favouring and out-group derogatory
Describe the PEC scale
- looking at resistance to social change
- elements of liberty + personal responsibility
Describe the F scale
- looking at POTENTIAL for fascism
- target-neutral items
- pro-trait = so if you score high on one, you are likely to score high on another :/
- Has many clusters
What are some of the clusters of the F scale?
- conventionalism
- Authoritarian submission
- Authoritarian aggression
What is RWA?
Right wing authoritarian:
- submission to the established legitimate authorities in their society
- Conventionalism
What is an issue with using the term RWA in psychology?
- used to in general describe a sense of submission to authorities
= SO even left-wing establishments = RWA eg Nazis :/
What is SDO?
Social dominance orientation
- the extent to which one desires that one’s in-groups dominate + be superior to out-groups
In what areas do SDO show little to no correlation to RWA?
- power
- psychoticism
- lack of universalism
- Gender
- Lack of benevolence
In what ares do RWA show little to no correlation to SDO?
- Religious fundamentalism
- Self-righteousness
- Rationalism
- Dangerous worlds beliefs
- Conformity
- Need for structure
In threat-control driven prejudice, why are outgroups disliked and feared?
- seen as threatening, dangerous, immoral + deviant
In competitive-dominance-driven prejudice, what are outgroups disposed + derogated>
- believe they are inferior, worthless + inadequate
Why, in order to explain many kinds of prejudice, personality has to be taken into consideration?
- only 2 kinds of personality are basically involved
- -> Social dominator (competitive-dominance-driven prejudice)
- -> RWA (threat-control driven prejudice)
What are the 2 different branches SDO been split into?
- SDO-D
- social dominance orientation - Dominance - SDO-E
- Social dominance orientation - Anti-egalitarianism
What does SDO-D posit?
- ideal society = a hierarchy of groups
- since some are just inferior to other groups
- BUT no one gorup should dominate
- groups at bottom are just as deserving
What does SDO-E posit?
- group equality should not be primary goal = unjust
- should focus on equalising conditions for different groups + give an equal change to succeed
Differences in studnet’s respect for others (SOD score) and their openness (RWA predicts what?
- a lot of variance in their positive + negative intergroup attitudes
