Authoritarian Personality

• Two types of factors that affect obedience


  Situational Dispositional
• What are dispositional factors?


  Personality
• Who first came up with The Authoritarian Personality?

  Adorno et al in 1950
• What did Adorno et all use to measure The Authoritarian personality?

  California F-scale
• What does the F stand for in the California F-scale?

  Fascism
• What do people with authoritarian personalities tend to be like?

  • Rigid thinkers
  • See the world in black and white terms
  • Follow strict social rules/hierarchies
• How do people with authoritarian personalities tend to have been raised?

  Strict authoritarian parenting style including physical punishment
• Strength of The Authoritarian Personality

  Elms & Milgram Supporting evidence
• Why is "Elms & Milgram Supporting evidence" a strength of The Authoritarian Personality?

  • Contacted participants who had previously taken part in Milgram's original study.
  • 20 obedient and 20 disobedient completed F-scale and were asked open-ended questions about their relationship with their parents during childhood
  • There were higher scores on the F-scale for people in the obedient vs the disobedient group
  • Disobedient participants were also more likely to describe their fathers in more negative terms
• Limitations of The Authoritarian Personality

  • Milgram said situational factors were much stronger
  • Elms and Milgram parental relationships
  • Middendorp & Meleon education level
• Why is "Milgram said situational factors were much stronger" a limitation of The Authoritarian Personality?

  Milgram accepted that there might be a dispositional basis to obedience/disobedience, he believed that situational factors were much stronger

  He argued that the big differences in levels of obedience shown when he altered the specific situation couldn't be explained by differences in personality alone
• Why is "Elms and Milgram parental relationships" a limitation of The Authoritarian Personality?

  • Found that many of the people who obeyed had had good relationships with their parents during childhood rather than these being overly strict
  • This suggests that obedience may be due to more than just personality
• Why is "Middendorp & Meleon education level" a limitation of The Authoritarian Personality?

  • Found that, generally speaking, less educated people tend to be more authoritarian than higher educated people
  • This may suggest that education can affect authoritarianism and obedience