Dispositional factors

• What 4 traits are associated with the Authoritarian Personality 


  Excessive respect to those with more power than them (legitimate authority)

  High regard to status

  Cognitive style = black and white, no grey areas or fuzziness

  Conventional values - distinct stereotypes
• Frued believed that the origins of Auth personality 


  behavior + personality is Formed during Childhood
• Adorno - origins of Authoritarian Personality 


  agues that harsh parenting produce fear of parents and later at authority figures. This hatred is later taken out on more acceptable targets - ethnic minorities
• Other factors

  • Self-esteem
  • tendency to conform to Social norms (NSI ISI)
• Adorno personality Procedure


  2000 middle-class Americans and their unconscious attitudes toward racial to groups. Developed seveal Scales (including to Fascism scale (f-scale)) to measure authoritarian personality
• Correlation is not causation 


  Even though Adorno measured impressive range of variables and found correlations between them, we can’t prove that the one is effecting the other
• Middendorpt and Meleon found that less educated people are more likely to show authoritarian personality than well educated people. Might be because more educated people are exposed to other beliefs and are generally more confident in opinions. This could be another variable effecting obedience
• Methodological problems 


  Measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology- every question is a leading question and there is a chance of acquiescence bias - person ticking same box every time will score high on the f-scale
• Adorno's theory is limited because it is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that can account for obedience to authority across the whole population as there are a wide range of personalities throughout a population
• Research to support 


  Elms and Milgram - wanted to see if the obedient participants in Milagram’s study had auth. Personality

  20 obedient and 20 disobedient ppt. completed several personality questionnaires (including f-scale)

  Pts were also asked open questions about relationship with father
• Milgram and Elms findings 


  Obedient ppt scored higher on f-scale and were less close to their father

  Obedient ppt have higher levels of auth personaliTy.

  • Open ended questions lead to detail rich data (strength)