Authoritarian Personality

• The authoritarian personality


  •This is a dispositional explanation of obedience i.e. it focuses on the importance of the individual’s personality in explaining their behaviour.
• The authoritarian personality


  •It is a collection of dispositions/traits that develop from strict parenting, such as being conformist, conventional and dogmatic. Such people have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority.
• The F Scale


  •The California F scale (the 'F‘ stood for 'Fascist') was used by Adorno et al. to measure the different components that made up the Authoritarian Personality.
• The F Scale


  Individuals with this type of personality (authoritarian personality) were rigid thinkers who obeyed authority, saw the world as black and white, and enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies.
• Those that scored high on the F-scale, were identified to have more of an authoritarian personality


  -Identified with strong people-Scornful of the weak-Conscious of their own status-Excessive respect to higher authority-Highly conventional attitude towards sex, race and gender.-Belief that the world needs powerful leaders-Emphasis on love for tradition, family, religion and culture
• Eval Points


  —Political bias – it measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology. However, there is also left-wing authoritarianism. Therefore, research using this cannot support that the theory is a comprehensive explanation of obedience that can account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum.—
• Eval Points


  —Methodological problems e.g. all questions are worded in the same direction, which can lead to an acquiescence bias (tendency to just agree with everything). Therefore, from research using the F-scale, we cannot strongly support the internal validity of the dispositional explanation.
• Adorno et al. also found that people who scored high on the F scale tended to have been raised by parents who used an authoritarian and harsh parenting style


  -Extreme discipline-Impossibly high standards-Severe criticism of perceived failings-The parents love towards the child depends on the behaviour of the child
• •Growing up within a particular social system means that people assume that this system is the expected norm. Therefore, if children happen to grow up in a particularly authoritarian family, with a strong emphasis on obedience, then they acquire these same authoritarian attitudes through a process of learning and imitation.
• •Adorno also argued that these experiences create resentment and hostility in the child, however the child cannot express these feelings due to a fear of reprisal from parents. Therefore, these feelings are displaced on ‘weaker’ individuals (this is known as scapegoating)•
• •Altemeyer refined the concept of the Authoritarian Personality by identifying a cluster of three of the original personality variables that he referred to as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA).
• •High-RWA people possess three important personality characteristics that predispose them to obedience:

  1)-  Conventionalism — an adherence to conventional norms and values.2)- Authoritarian aggression — aggressive feelings toward people who violate these norms.3)- Authoritarian submission — uncritical submission to legitimate authorities.