The Authoritarian Personality

1
The Authoritarian Personality

• Perspectives from Adorno et al. and Altemeyer
• PSY203S

2
Setting the scene

• Late 1940s and early 1950s
• Europe recovering from WWII. First details of
  the holocaust are made public (1946)
• SA National Party comes to power installs
  apartheid policy (1948)
• USA Anti-communist sentiments peak in the
  McCarthy hearings (1953)

3
Right about that time

• A problem in psychology theory
• Had theories to explain prejudice (eg. Freuds
  stuff)
• BUT all individual based
• How do these explain an entire political party
  showing this behaviour?
• Triggers a concerted effort to look at this
  phenomenon
• Especially from Jewish psychologists in Europe

4
Interesting evidence

• Research from the time shows a link between
  prejudice for different groups
• Fink (1947) Correlations between prejudice for
  various groups
• Adorno at al. (1950) Correlation between anti-
  semitic and anti-Negro prejudice
• And, uh-oh
• Hadley (1947) Correlations between prejudice for
  imaginary groups
• One possible conclusion some people are more
  prone to the process of prejudice than others

5
How do we explain this?

• Prothro (1952) Not that some people are more
  negative rather, they are more receptive to
  prejudiced beliefs.
• Other explanations
• frustration
• poor psychological adjustment
• political conservatism
• religious fundamentalism

6
The Authoritarian Personality

• Proposed by Theodore Adorno, Else
  Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt
  Sanford (1950)
• Very detailed, based on empirical research
• A syndrome - determines susceptibility to
  prejudice and patterns of belief and ideology
• display behaviour which follows a coherent
  pattern
• defines a type of person who is more likely to
  show prejudiced behaviour

7
Authoritarian traits

• Authoritarians display most of
• Conventionalism
• Submission to authority figures
• Authoritarian Aggression
• Anti-intraception
• Superstition and stereotypy
• Concern with power and toughness
• Destructiveness and cynicism
• Projectivity
• Concern with sexual goings-on

8
Examples from Adorno et al.

• High scorers
• M352 (pg. 760-761) (Authoritarian syndrome)
• 5057 (pg. 757) (Conventional syndrome)
• As opposed to low scorers
• M711 (pg. 779-781) (Easy-going syndrome)
• F515 (pg. 782-783) (Genuine liberal)

9
How much authoritarianism could a fascist chuck

• The F-scale measures authoritarianism
• Agreement based Likert-type scale
• http//www.anesi.com/fscale.htm

• A person who has bad manners, habits, and
  breeding can hardly expect to get along with
  decent people. (CON)
• Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but
  as they grow up they ought to get over them and
  settle down. (SUB)
• There is hardly anything lower than a person who
  does not feel a great love, gratitude, and
  respect for his parents. (AGR)
• Nowadays more and more people are prying into
  matters that should remain personal and private.
  (INTR)

10
Example items from the F-scale (supposedly)
high F-scorers

• Some day it will probably be shown that astrology
  can explain a lot of things. (SS)
• The true American way of life is disappearing so
  fast that force may be necessary to preserve it.
  (PT)
• Human nature being what it is, there will always
  be war and conflict. (CYN)
• Most people don't realize how much our lives are
  controlled by plots hatched in secret places.
  (PROJ)
• Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children,
  deserve more than mere imprisonment such
  criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse.
  (SEX)

11
How to become an authoritarian personality

• Adorno et al. explain the development of the
  personality in childhood
• Freudian style their theoretical basis
• Psychodynamic analysis of early family life
• Mostly come from strict household / authoritarian
  parents
• Tension hate v. fear of reprisal

12
Causes and effects
Adorno et als (1950) psychodynamic theory of the
development of authoritarianism
13
Discussion of the theory

• How was the theory built (what methodology was
  adopted)?
• Straightforward social science project
• Interviewed people, looked for common patterns in
  both histories and attitudes/behaviours
• Once this was done, built scales (F-scale, etc).
  Found the psychometric properties of the scales.
• Validated and refined the F-scale by various
  means (discriminant validation, confirmatory
  methods, etc.)
• The F-scale was then used to further the theory
  and select people for further interviews

14
Here comes the error

• Serious error in the F-scale Acquiescence bias
• All items worded in the same direction (agreement
  authoritarianism)
• What about people who naturally tend to agree
  (acquiescent subjects) ?
• Does a high F-score mean high authoritarianism or
  high acquiescence?
• No way to know
• Acquiescence is a third variable

15
Other criticisms

• Freudian basis is highly suspect (shaky
  foundations)
• Extensive use of projective tests (e.g. TAT)
  known to be of low reliability and suspect
  validity
• Was it research or a criticism of a particular
  political system?
• Cannot predict prejudice in societies were
  prejudice is the norm (e.g. South Africa)

Recommended
16
Show me the money empirical evidence

• Several relational studies
• How strongly is prejudice related to
  authoritarianism?
• Look at normatively prejudiced societies AND
  normatively non-prejudiced ones
• Not very impressive correlations
• Strongest Ray (1980) r 0.59 (R2 0.34)
• Weakest Orpen van der Schyff (1972) r 0.05
  (R2 0.0025)
• Uncorrected average over 25 studies r 0.28
  (R2 0.0784)

17
Is Authoritarianism useless?

• Should we drop the notion of a personality trait
  which predicts prejudice?
• Criticisms mostly aimed at specifics of Adorno et
  als theory, rather than the concept
• Still useful in societies where prejudice is not
  normative
• Rephrase Personality variables affect prejudice
  in certain social climates

18
The concept overhauled RWA

• 1980s Authoritarianism re-done by Bob Altemeyer
  (Uni. Winnipeg)
• Looked at all the research on Authoritarian
  personality, re-analyzed it
• Replaces Freudian notions with more modern ideas
  such as attitudes and cognition
• Comes up with a simplified version of
  Authoritarianism RWA (right-wing
  authoritarianism)

19
Features of RWAs

• Altemeyer reduces authoritarianism to three
  dimensions only (Adorno et al had 9)
• Submit to established authorities
• Authoritarian submission
• Tend to be punitive, harsh
• Authoritarian aggression
• Conform to conventional standards
• Conventionalism
• Makes a shift from personality to personality
  dimension

20
Typical RWA attitudes

• Attitudes found in RWAs include
• High in prejudice (gay, minorities,
  environmentalists, feminists)
• Politically conservative
• High in religiosity (exaggerated piety/zeal
  emphasis on sentiment rather than behaviour) and
  fundamentalism
• Perceive the world as being very dangerous.

21
Typical RWA cognitive styles

• High RWAs have a cognitive style which leads to
• Trouble at spotting false inferences
  (yea-saying).
• Prone to self-contradiction
• Difficulty disengaging critical thought from
  religious beliefs
• More prone to fundamental attribution error
  (overestimate individual factors and
  underestimate group factors)
• Difficulty in dealing with ambiguities

22
Implication of RWA cognitive style (dont copy
down!!)

• The amount of money universities have to carry
  out their leftwing mission is mind-boggling.
  Whereas conservative and pro-American
  intellectual sources (such as the Heritage
  Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute)
  and conservative journals may have budgets of a
  few million dollars, universities have billions
  of dollars. A great portion is taxpayers' money
  (through research grants and student- financed
  tuition), and in addition the leftists control
  most student activity assessments.
• (Eagle Forum Collegiate)
• Can RWA theory helps us gain an insight into why
  this statement would be convincing?

23
Measuring RWA examples

• Also uses a Likert-type agreement scale, but with
  half of the items reversed
• Our country will be destroyed someday if we do
  not end the perversions eating away at out moral
  fibre and moral beliefs A
• Our prisons are a shocking disgrace. Criminals
  are unfortunate people who deserve much better
  care, instead of so much punishment. A -
  reversed item
• What our country needs is more discipline, with
  everyone following our leaders in unity S
• There is no One Right Way to live life
  everybody has to create their own way C -
  reversed item
• One good way to teach certain people right from
  wrong is to give them a good stiff punishment
  when they get out of line. C
• A "woman's place" should be wherever she wants to
  be. The days when women are submissive to their
  husbands and social convention belong strictly in
  the past. C reversed item

24
Development of RWA

• Altemeyer Cognitive style is learnt at home
• Early socialization is important
• Parents/guardians play a large role
• No displaced aggression plain old learned
  behaviour
• The child learns about hierarchy, submission,
  etc. by observation, punishment reward
• Cognitive style follows as a consequence
• Conservatism is passed down from parents (no
  unconscious stuff at work)
• So, choose your parents carefully!

25
The Authoritarian gene?

• McCourt et al (1999)
• Study of monozygotic / dizygotic twins raised
  apart/together
• Found 50 variance due to genetic factors 35
  only for unshared environment
• Conclusion genes more important than upbringing
  in RWA
• Katz Barrett (1997)
• As young as 6 months, can distinguish high-bias
  and low-bias children
• high-bias children paid more attention to race
  of adults entering the room
• Too young for parental influence to be a major
  factor

26
Another perspective SDT

• Social Dominance Theory (Sidanius Pratto, 1999)
• Another explanation of the role of personality in
  prejudice
• Extremely simple, elegant view
• One single personality dimension Social
  Dominance Orientation (SDO)
• Takes into account not only the individual (as
  Adorno et al Altemyer do), but also the
  divisions which exist in society

27
Basics of SDT

• Societies create hierarchies based on three
  features
• Age
• Gender these two exist in all societies
• empty set (arbitrary stuff - race, wealth,
  political party, religion) only in societies
  producing economic surplus
• Hierarchies according to these groups are kept at
  particular levels by legitimizing myths
• The interesting question What importance does a
  particular person give to these hierarchies?
  (what is their level of social dominance
  orientation - SDO?)

28
Legitimizing myths

• The degree to which societies emphasize
  hierarchies is controlled by legitimizing myths
• Hierarchy Emphasizing myths (HE) racism,
  sexism, nationalism
• Hierarchy Attenuating myths (HA) socialism,
  multiculturalism, universal rights
• The degree to which HE and HA myths prevail in a
  society sets how important hierarchies are for
  that society

29
Measuring the myths SDO scale

• Likert-type questionnaire HA and HE items
  (emphasis on measuring the focus on hierarchies)
• HA items examples
• Some groups of people are simply inferior to
  others
• If certain groups stayed in their place, we would
  have fewer problems
• Sometimes other groups must be kept in their
  place
• HE items examples
• It would be good if all groups could be equal
• Group equality should be our ideal
• All groups should be given an equal chance in
  life

30
Development of SDO Maintenance of hierarchies