Authortarian personality

• AO3 for AP

  • 😄 Research support elms and milgram- shows link between AP and obedience
  • ☹️ social context may be more important- Milgrams experiment shows the impact of situational variables and not dispositional ones as being a large factor of obedience, AP lacks flexibility to account for variations in different situations
  • ☹️alternate explanations- agentic state, leg of authority, etc (tarnows investigation)
  • ☹️ education may determine obedience and authoritarianism- milgram found pps with lower levels of education seemed to be more obedient
• what is AP?

  personality characterised by strict adherence to rules or figures of authority
• who was the F scale developed by and what was it used for?

  • stands for fascist
  • used to measure authoritarian personality
  • people who score high on the F scale believe in statements such as- "rules are meant to be followed and not broken"
• How did Altemeyer refine AP?

  3 personality variables he referred to as right wing authoritarianism

  • conventionalism- strict adherence to rules
  • authoritarian aggression- aggression/anger toward people who don't follow rules
  • authoritarian submission- uncritical submission to legitimate authorities
• describe how Altermeyer tested the relationship between RWA and obedience

  • asked pps to give themselves increasing levels of shock when they made mistakes on a learning task
  • correlations between RWA scores and the level of shocks pps were willing to give themselves- higher the RWA, the higher the shocks given
• describe the study by Elms and Milgram

  • interviewed 20 of the most and 20 of the least obedient pps of Milgram's shock study
  • used F scale to measure AP, and MMPI scale
  • asked about parental relationships and how they veiwed the learner and experimenter during the study
  • most obedient said they admired the experimenter, those who were rebellious didn't
  • those who were obedient said they had strict parents, less close with fathers during childhood, described fathers in negative terms.
  • high AP for obedient pps than defiant ones