Authoritarian Personality Evaluation

Question 1

How does the authoritarian personality have good research support?

Answer 1

Milgram and Elms study

Question 2

What is the main problems with the research into authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

Correlation, not causation:
. Merely a correlation between obedience and authoritarian personality, could have a third factor involved
. Can’t claim harsh parenting styles CAUSED an authoritarian personality

Question 3

How is this Dispositional explanation of obedience limited?

Answer 3

. Can’t use personality to explain obedience across a whole country e.g in Nazi germany as there is no way all the Nazis had this authoritarian personality
. There is a much more realistic alternative explanation - social identity. The majority of Germans identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state

Question 4

How does the F-scale have political bias?

Answer 4

. Measures tendency towards extreme right-wing views (fascism)
. Measures authoritarianism based on one end of political views is politically biased
. Christie and Jahoda pointed out the fact that left-wing authoritarianism can be seen through Russian Bolshevism and is commonly characterised similarly to right-wing authoritarianism, with an emphasis on complete obedience to legitimate authority

Question 5

How was the problem of political biases and lack of comprehensiveness in the F-scale improved upon?

Answer 5

Right-wing Authoritarianism scale developed by Altemeyer
- this focuses on right-wing authoritarianism so is clearer than the F-scale in what is being measured