Contemporary Study (Cohrs)

• Cohrs aim was to investigate whether RWA would correlate positively with low openness, if SDO would correlate negatively with agreeableness and if both would correlate positively with generalised prejudice.
• Participants completed a questionnaire which included measures of RWA, SDO, agreeableness, openness and generalised prejudice.
• Internal locus of control

  More likely to disobey orders and blame themselves
• External locus of control

  More likely to obey orders and blame others
• Authoritarian personalities

  More likely to obey if they view the person as better than them and are authoritative to those below them
• Describe Cohrs Sample

  Opportunity sample of 193 people, 125 women,64 men and 4 that didn’t disclose gender. Aged 18-64 with mean age of 34. Different social backgrounds from East Germany. Each participant recruited a peer from the same area that was well known to them. 12 euros and a personality profile were given for taking part.
• Describe Cohrs procedure

  Participants completed anonymous self reports that used unique codes to match participants to their peers and measured their personality in terms of conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Ranked scales were used where 1 was not true at all and 7 was completely true. Prejudice was measured regarding attitudes towards homosexuality, foreigners and disabilities. Only able bodied German nationals analysed because people from target groups may not have expressed Prejudicial attitudes.
• Results for RWA

  Right wing Authoritarianism had a weak negative correlation with openness (-0.22 ) and a positive correlation with generalised prejudice (0.48)
• Results for SDO

  Social Dominance Orientation had a negative correlation with agreeableness ( -0.40 ) and a weak positive correlation with generalised prejudice (0.28)
• Conclusion

  Data collected shows specific personality traits are highly predictive of RWA and SDO which can predict levels of generalised prejudice
• One weakness of Cohrs study is that it only studied Germans. This means it cannot be generalised to the wider population.
• One strength of cohrs study is that it can be applied in order to reduce prejudice for example by changing prejudice reduction techniques based on a person’s personality. This is effective as it allows society to develop policies for tackling prejudice that are tailored to individuals.
• An example of a prejudice reduction technique is helping someone with Right Wing authoritarianism see difference as less threatening.
• Another weakness of cohrs study is that it relied on peer reports which can be biased due to social desirability bias as the peer might not want to describe their friend as prejudiced in case it makes them look bad. This means the data about personality and prejudice may lack validity due to the correlational data becoming meaningless.
• One weakness of Cohrs study is that he used closed questions in his procedure. This is a weakness as we can’t interpret why participants had certain attitudes and only know how much they agreed with the questions presented.
• A strength of Cohrs study is that it had a standardised procedure which meant everyone received the same questionnaire. This is a strength as it makes the study easier to replicate, increasing the reliability.