O: Dispositional Explanations

• Who conducted research into the authoritarian personality?

  Theodor Adorno
• Adorno's findings when studying the authoritarian personality

  Those who scored higher on the authoritarian f-scale identified with 'strong' people and were generally contemptuous of the 'weak' including being very concious of their status and others.
• What was Adorno's procedure for an authoritarian personality?

  investigated 200 middle-class white Americans and their unconscious attitude towards other racial groups by developing several scales including an f-scale to measure authoritarian personality
• what did Adorno find about the cognitive style of people with an authoritarian personality?

  they had strict categories of people, with fixed stereotypes about other groups
• Authoritarian characteristics

  1. tend to be especially obedient towards authority
  2. show contempt for people they perceive as having inferior social status
  3. have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender
  4. believe we need strong, powerful leaders to reinforce traditional values
  5. inflexible to their outlook
• What causes the formation of an authoritarian personality?

  harsh parenting such as strict discipline, an expectation of loyalty and impossibly high standards including conditional love
• how do harsh parenting and conditional love cause an authoritarian personality?

  creates resentment and hostility, if the child cannot express their feeling due to fear, they displace their fears onto others
• what type of explanation is the authoritarian personality?

  psychodynamic explanation
• Strength of Adorno's research into the authoritarian personality

  1. Research support
• Weaknesses of Adorno's theory: It is difficult to generalise to other cultures
• How does Adrono's research into the authoritarian personality have political bias?

  • F-scale measures extreme forms of right-wing ideology