Authoritarian personality

Authoritarian personality

A distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience o submission to authority

Adorno believed

• High obedience is pathological

• Unquestioning obedience is a psychological disorder

• People with an authoritarian personality are incredibly obedient

• They have an exaggerated sense of respect for authority

• They express contempt for anyone who is seen as being in a lower social class than themselves

What causes it ?

• Originates in childhood harsh parenting

• Strict discipline and expectation of loyalty and high standards

• Linked to conditional love and severe discipline- which the child turns into their internal schema

• Creates resentment but can do nothing in fear of consequence

• These feelings are displaced onto others known as scapegoating

The F scale- Adorno (1950)

A measure of authoritarian traits a person has Adorno found that those who scored highly on the f scale have parents with an authoritarian parenting style

Right wing authoritarianism A/A*

• Conventionalism- a devotion to conventional norms and values

• Authoritarian aggression- violent or hostile actions towards those few who defy or disrupt these norms

• Authoritarian submission- completely trusting obedience to legitimate authorities

Example PEEL

P- one limitation is authoritarianism cant explain country’s behaviour

E- millions of people in Germany displayed anti semitic behaviour but they cant all have authoritarian personality

E- a more likely explanation is that the German identified with the nazi’s state

L- social identity might be a better explanation

Example PEEL

P- the evidence of the F scale is flawed

E- the scale has been used in many re search studies to offer support for the authoritarian personality

E- however, the scale i flawed people who agree with the statement are scored as authoritarian so causes a response bias

L- therefore the explanation of obedience may not be valid

Evaluation

Left-wing views are associated with lower levels of obedience

Altemeyer's reformulation of the Authoritarian Personality in terms of'right-wing authoritarianism' suggests that people who define themselves as on the right of the political spectrum would be more likely to obey authority. We might expect, therefore, that people who define themselves as more left-wing' would be characterised by lower levels of obedience.

There is some support for this distinction. Bègue et al. (2014) carried out a replication of Migram's study as part of a fake game show, where contestants had to deliver (fake) electric shocks to other contestants. Subsequent interviews using the World Value Survey Questionnaire revealed that the more participants defined themselves as on the left of the political spectrum, the lower the intensity of shocks they agreed to give to the other contestant.

This suggests that situational context (as studied by Milgram) does not exclude the

possibility of individual differences as a determining influence in