Authoritarian personality Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is an authoritarian personality?
A person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them
How is authoritarian personality measured? Who was it first used by? How does it work?
The F scale, first used by Adorno et al
- measures the different components that make up an authoritarian personality
- contained statements like ‘rules are there for people to follow not to change’ - agreeing indicated authoritarian personality
What is the behaviour of a person with an authoritarian personality?
A rigid thinker who obeys authority and thinks in black and white
What link did Adorno make in reference to parenting and authoritarian personality?
Those who scored highly on the F scale were likely raised by parents who had an authoritarian parenting style (including use of physical punishment)
Growing up with a particular social system means that people assume that this system is the expected norm - acquire strong emphasis on obedience through learning and imitation
Who was the first to identify right-wing authoritarianism?
Altemeyer (1981)
What is right-wing authoritarianism?
Made up of three characteristics:
- Conventionalism
- Authoritarian aggression (against those who violate norms)
- Authoritarian submission
How did Altemeyer study right-wing authoritarianism?
Ordered participant to give themselves increasing levels of shock when they made mistakes on a learning task - significant correlation between RWA scores and the level of shocks they were willing to give themselves
- also a large red button above warning them to not press button unless told to do so - after experiment they were told to press it, RWA appeared irrelevant for this instruction as majority did it without question
Who studied whether obedience was situational or dispositional (authoritarian personality)?
Elms and Milgram
What were the procedures for Elms and Milgrams Study?
- Carried a follow-up study using participants who had previously taken part in Milgrams experiment
- Selected 20 of the obedient participants + 20 defiant participants
- Each completed the MMPI scale (measuring a range of personality variables) and the F scale (specifically to levels of authoritarianism) also asked a series of open-ended questions about their relationship with parents in childhood and their attitude to the experimenter and the learner in OG study
What were the findings of Elms and Milgrams study?
- Found little differences between obedient and defiant participants on MMPI variables
- Found higher levels of authoritarianism among those participants who classified as obedient
- Obedient participants saw the experimenter as admirable and the earner as much less so
Why does Milgram argue situational factors are still more important than dispositional factors?
Milgram showed that variations in the social context of the study e.g. proximity, location etc were the primary cause of differences in participants levels of obedience not variations in personality
He believed that the specific social situation participants found themselves in caused them to obey or resist regardless of their personalities
What has research shown about the impact education has on authoritarian personality?
Middendrop and Meloen found that generally less-educated people are consistently more authoritarian than the well educated - creates a cause relationship between authoritarianism and obedience may be more illusory than real
