Authoritative personality

Authoritative personality

Is a dispositional theory of why people are obedient, it was suggested by Adorno who thought that people with high levels of obedience had something psychologically wrong with them.

Main characteristics of an authoritative personality

Rigid beliefs in conventional

General hostility towards other groups

Intolerance of ambiguity

Submissive attitude towards authority figures

Respect authority

Inflexible in their outlook

Everything is either right or wrong

Uncomfortable with uncertainty

Upbringing

Adorno believed that your personality was a result of upbringing, if you had strict parents who believed in punishment, you are more likely to have an authoritative personality.

F-scale

This is a way to measure someones personality.

Example of a question: “obedience and respect for authority and are the most important virtues that children should learn.

Elms and Milgram

They wanted to see if the obedient participants in Milgrams original study of obedience showed signs of having an authoritative personality. Their sample consisted of 40 participants, 20 who administered the full 450 volts and 20 who refused. They concluded that those who administered the full voltage displayed higher levels of an authoritative personality.

Weakness

Many other psychologists say that culture, social situations is a better explanation for personality than Adorno’s theory of the authoritative personality.

Generalisability

Adorno tested 2000 white, middle class Americans, its good that he tested both men and women however the theory still cannot be generalised to the majority population.

Data collection

The way in which Adorno collected his evidence was a weakness as the f-scale was a set of closed questions making it impossible for participants to express their true opinions.