The authoritarian personality Flashcards
What does the identification of a specific authoritarian personality type provide?
explanation as to why some indiiduals require little pressure to obey.
who created a scale and what was it called.
Adorno (1950) F Scale
What does the F scale measure.
the different components that make up authoritarian personality.
give an example of a question on the f scale.
‘obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn’ -agree indidcative of AP.
What did Adorno find out about people who scored highly on F-Scale?
They had grown up in a particularly authoritarian family with a strong emphasis on obedience.
Who refined the AP concept?
Altemeyer(1981)
how did altemeyer refine the concept of AP?
By identifying a cluster of 3 of original personality variables that he referred to as right wing authoritarism.
If you have a High RQA what do the individuals possess? and what does this do?
These personality characteristics (conventionalism, authoritarian agression/submission) that predispose them to obedience.
Outline the procedure for the Elms and Milgram study (1966)
- A follow up study using **20 obedient **and **20 disobedient ppts **from milgram study.
- each ppts completed a personality scale MMPI and authoritarianism scale (f-scale)
- also asked quesions about upbringing and their attitude to experimenter and learner in M study.
Outline the findings in the Elms Milgram (1966)
- Little diff between obedient and disobedient on MMPI scores.
- higher levels of authoritariasm among obedient ppts than disobedient ppts.
- obedient ppts reported being less close to fathers during childhood and saw authority figures as more admirable than the learner.
A03- There is research evidence for the authoritarism/obedience link…
P-Although several studies have found that authoritarian ppts are more obedient, there has been considerable suspicion about whether ppts really believed they were giving shocks.
E-Researchers used an ‘immersive virtual env’ yet ppts still responded as if situ was real, with sig correlation between RWA scores and max vol shock level.
L- As ppts who displayed higher levels of RWA were ones who obeyed the most, this confirms the link between authoritarism and obedience.
A03- Social context is more important
P- M didn’t believe that the evidence for a dispositional basis to obedience was particularly strong.
E- M showed that variations in the social context of the study (e.g. proximity of the victim) were the primary cause of diff in ppts levels of obedience, not variations in personality.
L- Relying on an explanation of obedience based purely on authoritarism lacks flexibility to account for these variations.
A03- there are diff between authoritarism and obdient ppts.
P- E+M research found important diff in characteristics of authoritarian personality and the characteristics of obedient ppts
E- E.g. obedient ppts reported good relationship with parents, rather than having grown up in overly strict family env associated AP.
L- Given large no of ppts fully obedient in M study it is implausable that maj would have grown up in harsh parental env.
A03 Plus- any causal relationships between authoritarism and obedience may be more illusory than real.
P- Research suggests that education may determine A+O
E-Research found less educated ppl are consistently more authoritarian than well educated people. M also found less edu people are more obedient.
L- Suggests that instead of A causing O lack of education could be responsible for both.
