authoritarian personality Flashcards
(4 cards)
AO1
The dispositional explanation of obedience states that certain personality traits are associated with higher levels of obedience, such as the Authoritarian personality.
Adorno developed the F scale questionnaire to measure the authoritarian personality in a sample of 2000 middle-class white Americans. The F scale questionnaire contained 30 questions that assessed 9 personality dimensions, e.g. ‘obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn’.
Found that those who were measured as having an authoritarian personality were generally thought of as ‘strong’ people who held the ‘weak’ in contempt. They are conscious of their own and others’ status, showing excessive respect and obedience to those of a higher status.
This personality type was shaped by a person’s upbringing, and Adorno suggested that certain ways of parenting (rigid and hierarchical) created adults who were unable to express their emotions.
AO3 - Elms, fully obedient pps from Milgram’s study
Elms used fully obedient participants from Milgram’s research (those that went up to 450V) and gave them the F-scale questionnaire. They found a strong positive correlation. Therefore there is a link between the Authoritarian personality and increased levels of obedience.
However, this is just a correlation and cannot establish cause and effect, therefore it is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the exact cause of obedience.
AO3 - F scale response & social desirability bias
It is possible that the F scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where participants provide answers that are socially acceptable. For example, participants may appear more authoritarian because they believe that their answers are socially ‘correct’ and consequently they are incorrectly classified as authoritarian when they are not. Therefore, results may not be representative.
Also cannot explain why entire groups of people or societies are obedient.
AO3 - only given to white middle class Americans
Questionnaire was only given to middle-class Americans, therefore the results would not be representative of the Authoritarian personality in the whole population, so cannot be generalised.
However, questionnaires are an effective method for collecting results as they are quick and cheap to produce. They also produce large amounts of data.
