Adorno et al. believe that high levels of obedience is a psychological disorder and believed it
was due to dispositional influences such as personality rather than situational influences such
as uniform
Authoritarian personality - personality that is susceptible to obeying people in authority -
submissive to higher ups, dismissive to people who they class as inferior
Characteristics :
● Extreme respect to authority
● Shows disregard for people who have a inferior social status
● Having traditional views towards race and gender
● We need strong, powerful leaders to enforce traditional values e.g. love of country ,
religion and family
● Black and white - no grey area
Origin:
● formed in childhood due to harsh parenting - extremely strict discipline, expectations of
loyalty and impossible high standards
● Due to conditional love
● Experiences created resentment and hostility in the child , but cannot express these
feeling - directly against parents because fear of retaliation
● Feelings are displaced onto other who are seen as weaker (scapegoats) - explains the
hate of people who are socially inferior
Adorno experiment :
● investigate unconscious attitudes of 2000 middle class white Americans towards other
racial groups
● several questionnaire developed including fascism scale - used to measure authoritarian
personality
● this is a far right authoritarian view characterised by dictatorship including of
suppression of opposition
● E.g. statement on f -scale
● obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues a child can learn
R:
● authoritarians who scored high on f scale - identified with strong people and were more
disregarding of weak
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