AO3

• Strength

  • elms and milgram - 40 ppts from original milgram study did adornos test
  • 20 fully obedient, 20 disobedient
  • Fully obedient group scored significantly higher on the scale than the disobedient
• nazi germany

  • millions if germans displayed anti-semetic behaviour but all cannot have had an authoritarian personality
  • a more likely explanation is that Germans identified with the nazi state
• christie and jahoda 


  • suggest the F scale aims to measure tendency towards extreme right wing ideology
  • but right wing and left wing authoritarianism both insist on complete obedience to political authority
  • adornos theory doesnt explain obedience to left wing authoritarianism
• F scale is a self report measure


  • people tend to agree on the statements and are scored as authoritarian (response bias)
  • it also measures conservative outlooks rather than authoritarianism
• correlation

  • adorno only found correlation between harsh parenting and authoritarian personality
  • cannot infer cause and effect - just shows a relationship and there could be a third variable ignored