Dispositional Obedience: Authoritarian Personality

Cards (3)

  • outline Adorno (1950)
    - studied personality questionnaires
    - developed the F scale: measurong 9 factors related to Authoritarian Personality
  • results, Adorno
    - people who scored highly on the F scale showed high respect for people with higher social status, had fixed stereotypes, identified with 'strong' people and disliked 'weak' people
    - Adorno suggested these people had their personality shaped early in life by authoritarian parenting (harsh physical/psychological punishments)
  • A03: Authoritarian Personality
    - interviewed ppts of Milgram: ppts who shocked to full 450v scored high on F scale than those who refused to continue
    - link between authoritarian personality and following orders is correlational, could be influenced by strict parenting, low income, poor education
    - lacks internal validity: all questions were written in one direction, seen as a left-wing theory and inherently biased