Authoritarian personality

• What is the authoritarian personality?

  A type of personality with strict adherence to values
• Who developed the concept of the authoritarian personality?

  Adorno et al. (1950)
• Why did Adorno et al. develop the theory of the authoritarian personality?

  To explain why some individuals are more obedient
• What tool did Adorno et al. use to measure authoritarian traits?

  The F-scale (Fascism scale)
• What is the purpose of the F-scale?

  To identify authoritarian tendencies
• What correlation did Adorno find between F-scale scores and obedience?

  Higher F-scale scores showed greater obedience
• What percentage of Milgram's participants delivered the full 450V shock?

  65%
• How does the percentage of Milgram's participants relate to the authoritarian personality?

  Some may have scored high on authoritarian measures
• What are some characteristics of people with an authoritarian personality?

  Rigid thinking and black-and-white worldview
• How do people with an authoritarian personality view those of lower status?

  They tend to be hostile toward them
• What are people with an authoritarian personality characterised by?

  They have a need to obey authority, rigidly following rules, hostile to lesser status individuals. Have harsh parenting that was characterised by conditional love.
• Why are they hostile to lesser status individuals?

  Scapegoating, when individuals with an authoritarian personality displace their hostility onto weaker groups, often blaming them for societal problems.
• People who scored high on the F scale were contemptuous of the weak, conscious of status and had a positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
• A strength of the authoritarian personality explanation is that it is supported by research from Elms and Milgram (1966). They conducted follow-up interviews with participants from Milgram’s original obedience study and found that those who gave the highest shocks scored significantly higher on the F-scale, indicating authoritarian traits. This suggests that individuals with more authoritarian personalities are more likely to obey orders from authority figures. The findings support the idea that personality factors, not just situational ones, can influence obedience, adding validity to the explanation.
• A limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation is that it relies on the F-scale, which is a self-report questionnaire. This method is vulnerable to response bias, particularly acquiescence bias, where participants tend to agree with statements regardless of their content. As the F-scale is made up of statements that require agreement to indicate authoritarian traits, people who naturally agree with items may score high even if they are not genuinely authoritarian. This questions the validity of the measurement and weakens the claim that authoritarianism causes obedience, as the results may reflect a response style rather than actual personality traits.
• A limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation is that it is contradicted by the findings of Middendorp and Meen (1990). They found that younger people and those with higher education were less likely to display authoritarian traits, contrary to what the authoritarian personality theory would predict. According to the theory, individuals with an authoritarian personality are more likely to obey authority, but Middendorp and Meen’s research suggests that education and age can influence obedience, indicating that other factors, such as social and environmental influences, might play a larger role than personality traits alone. This contradicts the idea that a single personality type accounts for obedience, suggesting the theory oversimplifies the relationship between personality and obedience.
• A limitation of dispositional explanations of obedience including the authoritarian personality) is that it does ignore the consistent evidence found by Milgram regarding situational variables. His variations strongly suggest that it is the situation and not the intrinsic traits of the individual that leads to obedience. If obedience was solely due to dispositional (intrinsic) factors then we would not expect to see obedience rates vary in the way that they did Milgram's variations. This questions the validity of the explanation.