The Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

What is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 1

A distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority.

Question 2

What are parts of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

The F scale

Right wing authoritarianism

Question 3

What’s the F scale?

Answer 3

Was developed in Californian as a measure of authoritarian traits or tendencies.

Question 4

What does the F stand for?

Answer 4

Fascist

Question 5

Who used the F scale?

Answer 5

Adorno (1950) to measure the different components that made up the authoritarian personality

Question 6

What did the F scale contain?

Answer 6

Contained statements such as:

Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn
Rules are there for people to follow, not change

Question 7

What does agreeing with statements on the F scale mean?

Answer 7

Was indicative of authoritarian personality

Question 8

What are people like with the authoritarian personality?

Answer 8

Rigid thinkers
Obeyed authority
Saw the world as black and white
Enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies

Question 9

How were people who scored high on the F scale raised?

Answer 9

They tended to have been raised by parents who used an authoritarian parenting style (including the use of physical punishment).

Growing up within a particular system means that people assume that this system is the expect norm.

Therefore, if children happen to grow up in a particularly authoritarian family, with a strong emphasis on obedience, then they acquire these same authoritarian attitudes through a process of learning and imitation.

Question 10

What is right-wing authoritarianism?

Answer 10

A cluster of personality variables (conventionalism, authority submission and authoritarian aggression) that are associated with a ‘right-wing’ attitude to life.

Question 11

What did Altemeyer do?

Answer 11

Refined the concept of authoritarian personality by identifying a cluster of three of the original personality variables that he referred to as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA).

Question 12

What do high RWA people possess?

Answer 12

Conventionalism - an adherence to conventional norms and values.

Authoritarian aggression - aggressive feelings toward people who violate these norms.

Authoritarian submission - uncritical submission to legitimate authorities.

Question 13

What did Altemeyer do?

Answer 13

Tested the relationship between RWA and obedience in an experiment where participants were ordered to give themselves increasing levels of shock when they made mistakes on a learning task.

Question 14

What did Altemeyer find?

Answer 14

There was a significant correlation between RWA scores and the level of shocks that participants were willing to give themselves.

Question 15

What was another things Altemeyer did?

Answer 15

There was a large red button, above was a warning - ‘don’t push this button unless you are instructed to do so’.

When the experiment was over the experimenter ordered participants to push the button to administer an extra strong shock as a punishment for not trying.

Participants levels of RWA appeared to be irrelevant for this instruction as the vast majority did as they were told without question.

Question 16

Who did a key study?

Answer 16

Elms and Milgram (1966)

Question 17

What was the procedure of Elms and Milgram’s study?

Answer 17

Carried out a follow-up study using participants who had previously taken part in one of Milgram’s experiments two months before.

They selected 20 ‘obedient’ participants (those who has continued to the final shock level) and 20 defiant participants (those who refused to continue at some point in the experiment).

Each participant completed the MMPI scale (measuring a range of personality variables) and the California F scale to specifically measure their levels of authoritarianism.

Participants were also asked a series of open-ended questions, including questions about their relationship with their parents during childhood and their attitude to the ‘experimenter’ (the authority figure) and the ‘learner’ during their participation in Milgram’s original study.

Question 18

What were the findings of Elms and Milgram’s study?

Answer 18

Little difference between obedient and defiant participants on MMPI variables.

However, they did find higher levels of authoritarianism among those participants classified as obedient, compared with those classified as defiant.

They also found significant differences between obedient and defiant participants that were consistent with the idea of authoritarian personality.

Obedient saw the authority figure in Milgram’s study as clearly more admirable, and the learner as much less so. This was not the case among the defiant participants.

These findings suggested to Elms and Milgram that the obedient group was higher on the trait of ‘authoritarianism’.

Question 19

What is meant by education?

Answer 19

Research suggests that education may determine both authoritarian and obedience.

Less-educated people are consistently more authoritarian than the well educated.
Milgram also found that pps with lower levels of education tended to be more obedient than those with higher levels.

Suggest instead of authoritarianism causing obedience, a lack of education could be responsible for both

Question 20

What is meant by differences between A/O pps?

Answer 20

Elms and Milgram’s research found important differences in the characteristics of pps.

E.g. obedient = reported good relationship with parents, rather than having grown up in overly strict family associated with AP.

Given the large number of pps who were fully obedient in his study its not probable that the majority would’ve grown up in a harsh parental environment.

Question 21

What is meant by research support for link?

Answer 21

Although several studies = A pps more obedient. Has been suspicion is pps believed shocks.

Used immersive virtual environment, yet pps still responded as if situation was real = significant correlation between RWA scores and the max shock level.

As pps displayed higher levels of RWA were the one who obeyed the most, this confirms the link between