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Discuss the Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience. -…
Discuss the Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience.
The foundations.
Adorno believed that the foundations for an authoritarian personality were laid in early childhood as a result of harsh and strict parenting.
which made the child feel that the love of their parents was conditional and dependent upon how they behaved.
The Study.
Adorno et al. (1950) conducted a study using over 2000 middle-class, Caucasian Americans using a number of questionnaires... it was called the F-SCALE.
It measured fascist tendencies, which is thought to be at the core of the authoritarian personality.
TRIGGER.
Anti- Semitism displayed in World War Two.
The Results.
Adorno found that Individuals who scored highly on the F-scale:
Identified with ‘strong’ people and showed disrespect towards the ‘weak’.
Were status-conscious.
Showed excessive respect to those in higher power.
Have a strict adherence to social values, and show hostility to inferiors, but servility to superiors.
Adorno concluded that individuals with an authoritarian personality were more obedient to authority figures and showed an extreme submissiveness and respect.
They are uncomfortable with uncertainty, with everything being seen as either right or wrong
An inflexible attitude.
Believed that society requires strong leadership to enforce rigid, traditional values.
HOWEVER...
The F-scale measures the tendency towards extreme right-wing ideology.
Christie and Jahoda 1954 argued that it was a political bias interpretation of an authoritarian personality.
Elms and Milgram (1966)
They did research on authoritarian personality being an explanation for obedience.
They conducted post-experimental interviews with participants who were fully obedient in Milgram’s original study, to see if there was a link between high levels of obedience and an authoritarian personality.
Results.
It was found that the obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale.
The obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s study.
However, the obedient participants in Milgram’s original research displayed more characteristics of the authoritarian personality these results should be treated with caution as they are correlational in nature and we are unable to conclude whether authoritarian personality causes people to obey.
Middendorp and Meleon (1990)
They found that less-educated people are more likely to display authoritarian personality characteristics.
Therefore to conclude ...
It is not authoritarian personality characteristics alone that LEAD TO OBEDIENCE but levels of education and childhood experiences. NOT JUST DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS
What is it?
The authoritarian personality refers to a specific personality held by people which makes them more prone to obedience.
The authoritarian personality has three categories which include: conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, and authoritarian submission. People with such a personality are more obedient because they see authority figures more legitimately.