The authoritarian personality

-The F-scale (F stands for facist) was used by adorno et al to measure the different components that make up the authoritarian personality

-The F scale contained statements such as 'rules are made to be followed' if agreed with then it was indicative of having an authoritarian personality

-Individuals with this personality type are: rigid thinkers, see the world as black and white, and enforcestrict adherence to social rules and hierachrys

-People with an authoritarian personality were typically brought up in a similar social situation

-Children growing up with an emphasis on strict obedience then aquire these attitudes through a process of learning and imititation

-Robert Altemeyer (1981) identified 3 clusters of the origininal personality variables

-Conventionalism= An adherence to conventional norms and values

->Athoritarian aggression= Aggressive feelings towards people who violate these norms

->Athortarian submission= Uncritical submission to legitimate authorities

->These variables were called the right-wing authoritarian (or the RWA)

-Altmeyer tested the relationship between RWA and obedience in an experiment were participants were giving themselves an electric shock (incresing with each wrong answer)

-There was a significant corralation between RWA scores and the level of shocks that the participants were willing to give themselves

-Large red button, danger, participants did it without question

-A follow up study using 20 of the 'obedient' participants' (continued to 450V) and 20 'disobedient participants' (those that had refused to continue at some point)

-Each participant completed completed the MMPI and the F-scale to specifically measure their level of authoritarianism

-They were also asked a series of open ended questions  that included question on relationships with parents and their attitude to the experimenter during their participation

-Little difference between obedient and defient participants on the MMPI

-Higher levels of authoritarianism among 'obedient' participants

-Significant differences between obedient and defient participants that were consistant with the idea of the authoritarian personality

-E.g. Obedient participants reported being less close to their fathers during childhood

-Obedients participants saw the experimentor as admirable and the learner as less so

-This suggests that Elms and Milgrams obedient participants had the traits of authoritarianism

-Several studies report that the authoritarian participants are more obedient

-However they suffer from whether the shocks were 'real' or fake

-Dambrun and Vatine over came this problem by using an immersive virtual environment, the learner was filmed 'responding' to the electric shocks

-The participants were inorfmed that the shocks were simulated but despite this still tended to respond as if they were real

-There was a significant corralation between between participants RWA scores and the maximum V given to the learner

-Participants who displayed higher levels of RWA were the ones who obeyed the most

-Milgram didn't believe that there was a dispositional basis to obedience/disobedience (evidence wasn't strong)

-Milgram showed that the variations in social context of the study were the primary cause of differences in the obedience levels (not because of variation in personality)

-He believed that it was the specific social situation that the participants were in that caused them to obey or resist authority regardless of personality

-RElying on an explanation based purely off of authoritarianism fails to to the variations into acount

-Basically Milgram believed that authoritariansim wasnt the cause of obedience in his study

-Milgram found that when the obedient participants in his study were asked about their upbringing many said that they had a good relationship with their parents

-This goes against a key characterist of the authoritarian personality; those with an authoritarian personality are likely to have had a bad relationship and a strict upbringing

-It seems implausible givin that the vast majority of Milgrams participants were obedient that very few had grown up in a harsh environment with a punitive father

-Research by Middendorp and Meloin found that less edgucated are conistently more authoritarian

-Milgram found that those that were less edgucated tended to be more obedient

-This suggests that authoritariansim isn't the cause of obedience but lack of edgucation is

-However in the statistical ananlysis of edgucation were measured, it was still found that those that were more obedient scored high on the F-scale

-Altemeyers reformulation of the authoritarian personality in terms of 'right wing authoritarianism' suggests that people who define themselves on the right side (po9litical spectrum) are less likely to be obedient

-This would suggest that left wingers are more obedient