1.2.3 Authoritarian Personality

Dispositional factors affecting obedience

Authoritarian Personality

Obedient people are the result of a psychological disorder. They obey because unconsciously, due to having harsh parenting as a child.

ADORNO et al (1950)

Study: Measured 2000 middle-class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups

• People who scored highly on the F-SCALE identified with 'strong' people and were contemptuous of 'the weak' (F-SCALE = Fascism scale).
• Showed a 'blind respect' to people with power
• Everything is very black and white - driven by stereotypes and prejudice

Authoritarian Personality Characteristics

• Blind obedience to authority
• Inflexible with their outlook - no grey areas
• Submissive to authority - driven by blind respect
• Need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values - society is "going to the dogs"
• Hostile to inferiors
• Strict upbringing
• Preoccupied with power and toughness
• Rigid in opinions and beliefs
• Obsessed with rank and status
• Submissive to superiors

Why?

Harsh parenting - strict discipline, expectations to be completely loyal, high standards, unconditional love for parents even if they do not agree with them

These experiences create hostility and despair in the child who displaces these feelings onto the 'weak' (scapegoating) This is anyone who is not the same as you (gender, race, sexuality)

Research support

Milgram and Elms (1966)

Interviewed a small sample of obedient participants who scored highly on the F-scale

This would indicate that the obedience being due to their fascist beliefs was a correlation

This makes it impossible to draw conclusions based on correlational research - therefore cannot conclude that obedience was caused by dispositional factors e.g., an authoritarian personality.

Results

Third variable problem/alternative explanation:

(not situational or dispositional) - may be due to another variable e.g., level of education

Hyman and Sheatsley (1954)

Found that the Authoritarian Personality is more likely to exist among people who are less well educated and are of a low economic social status

However, these results are inconsistent with the explanation.

Perhaps personality is not needed to explain obedience

Situational factors have more of an influence on obedience because the methodology is more valid and reliable