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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Adorno Authoritarian Personality
After World War II, many psychologists wanted to understand why so many Germans followed Hitler's orders and committed terrible acts. Theodor Adorno and his colleagues (1950) developed a theory to explain why some people are more likely to obey authority figures without question, even when asked to do harmful things.
Key Definitions:
Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) was a German philosopher and sociologist who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Along with colleagues Max Horkheimer, Else Frenkel-Brunswik and Daniel Levinson, he conducted research at the University of California to understand the psychological factors that made people susceptible to fascist propaganda and willing to obey destructive orders.
In 1950, Adorno and his team published "The Authoritarian Personality," a landmark study based on research with over 2,000 Americans. They used interviews, questionnaires and projective tests to identify personality traits associated with prejudice and blind obedience to authority.
According to Adorno, people with authoritarian personalities share several key traits that make them more likely to obey authority figures without question:
Excessive admiration and unquestioning obedience to authority figures. They believe power and toughness are important values.
Black-and-white thinking with strict rules about right and wrong. Intolerance of ambiguity and a need for clear structure.
Tendency to stereotype and show prejudice toward outgroups. Often project negative qualities onto those who are different.
Adorno developed the F-scale (F for "fascism") to measure authoritarian personality traits. The questionnaire includes items that assess nine key components:
Participants rate their agreement with statements like:
Higher scores indicate stronger authoritarian tendencies.
Adorno used Freud's psychodynamic approach to explain how authoritarian personalities develop:
According to Adorno, authoritarian personalities develop from harsh, strict parenting styles. The theory suggests:
Children with cold, distant parents who use harsh discipline learn to suppress feelings of resentment toward their parents. They can't express anger toward their parents (who control rewards and punishments), so they redirect this hostility toward safer targets - usually those perceived as weaker or different.
The child's repressed hostility toward parents gets displaced onto outgroups. Through projection, they attribute their own unacceptable impulses to others. This helps explain why authoritarian personalities often show prejudice toward minority groups.
Adorno found that participants with authoritarian personalities often described their parents as:
These family dynamics created adults who both resented and idealised authority.
Adorno's theory helps explain why some people are more likely to obey destructive orders:
Kirscht and Dillehay (1967) found that people with high F-scale scores were more likely to conform in group situations. Elms and Milgram (1966) discovered that participants who were most obedient in Milgram's famous shock experiments scored higher on measures of authoritarianism.
Authoritarian personality traits have been found across different cultures. Altemeyer (1981) developed the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale, which has shown consistent relationships with prejudice and obedience to authority across various countries.
Despite its influence, Adorno's theory has faced several important criticisms:
The F-scale has been criticised for response bias (all items are worded so that agreement indicates authoritarianism). The original research also relied heavily on psychoanalytic interpretation, which is difficult to test scientifically.
Social learning theorists argue that authoritarian attitudes are learned through observation and reinforcement, not psychodynamic processes. Cultural and historical factors may be more important than personality in explaining obedience.
Some critics argue the theory is politically biased, focusing only on right-wing authoritarianism while ignoring similar tendencies in left-wing ideologies.
Despite its limitations, Adorno's theory remains relevant for understanding why some people follow destructive leaders or participate in harmful group actions. Modern researchers continue to study authoritarian tendencies and their relationship to prejudice, political behaviour and obedience.
Adorno's theory suggests that:
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