Authoritarian Personality

• Dispositional Explanation: any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality. Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations.
• The authoritarian personality is a personality type that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.
• Adorno et al argued that people with an authoritarian personality all show an extreme respect for authority. They also view society as weaker than it once was , so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family.
• People with an authoritarian personality type also show contempt for those of inferior social status. This is fuelled by their inflexible outlook on the world - for them there are no grey areas.
• Adorno et al believed the authoritarian personality type forms in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting . This parenting typically features extremely strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and a severe criticism of failures.
• The love from the parents of an authoritarian person is completely conditional, depending on how they behave ("I will love you if...")
• Adorno et al argued that the parenting of an authoritarian child causes resentment or hostility in a child, but the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents because they fear punishment
• Due to an authoritarian child's fear of punishment from their parents they displace this fear onto those they believe to be weaker, this is known as scapegoating.
• Strength of Authoritatian Personality-Research Support

  • Milgram and Elms used the F-Scale to test the 20 most obedient participants of Milgrams study against the least obedient and found that the most obedient showed a significantly higher result. Suggests obedience and authoritarian personality have some similarities.

  Counterpoint

  • However some of the obedient participants had a number of unusual characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians, such as; not glorifying fathers, no unusual levels of punishment. This suggests the link is very complex.