Return to prejudice - remember it was a common reaction to group association Does this really explain individual difference in prejudice? - an affront to Freud! Evidence: generality of prejudice Adorno at al (1950): Correlation between anti- semitism and anti-Negro prejudice Fink (1947): Correlations between prejudice for different minorities Hadley (1947): Correlations between prejudice for imaginary groups Conclusion: some people are more prone to prejudice Prothro (1952): Not that people are generally negative, but they look at the social conventions with a more negative eye - ie. Some people are more "receptive" to prejudiced beliefs. What can explain this phenomenon? - frustration - poor psychological adjustment / low self-esteem - rigid cognitive styles intolerant of ambiguity eg. dogmatism - political conservatism - religious fundamentalism - authoritarianism Most important factor is authoritarianism (has been well researched) The Theory of the Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al, 1950) A very detailed theory, based on empirical research Syndrome which determines not only suceptibility to prejudice but also patterns of belief and ideology Behaviour forms coherent patterns which include: 1. Conventionalism 2. Authoritarian Submission 3. Authoritarian Aggression 4. Anti-intraception 5. Superstition and Stereotypy 6. Power and Toughness 7. Destructiveness and Cynicism 8. Projectivity 9. Sex These traits can be measured by means of the F-scale Good correlations between F scores and measures of anti-semitism and anti-Negro prejudice Assumed that authoritarians are suceptible to authoritarian ideologies (no direct support for this) How does the authoritarian personality develop? Adorno et al. use psychoanalysis and family dynamics to explain: Upbringing | V lntropsychic conflict | V Surface personality traits as well as sociai beliefs and behaviour In more detail (from Duckitt, 1991): Family Intropsychic Surface traits Social belief structure / conflict / behaviour relationships ------------------------------------------------------------------ Values - rigid, Resentment, Conventionalism, Implicitly conventional, hostility Authoritarian anti- status oriented towards submission & democratic parental aggression beliefs discipline Relationships- Repressed and Anti-intraception, Ethno- role displaced Projectivity, centrism, determined, because of Superstition and prejudice emotionally fear of and stereotypy distant, need to submit dominant- to parental subordinate authority Socialisation- Weak ego, Power & toughness Politico- strict, punitive and Destructiveness economic arbitrary unintegrated and cynicism. conser- discipline. superego. Overconcern with vatism, Intolerance of sexual goings-on Fascist nonconformity ideology, right wing political activity. How was theory built? Simple, classical social science methodology - a huge research project. Interviewed people who they believed to be highly authoritarian, found commonalities. Once this was done, built scales (F-scale, etc). Found the psychometric properties of the scales. Validated the F-scale by various means (discriminant validation, confirmatory methods, etc.) BUT: did make one serious methodological mistake: All items worded in the same direction (agreeing means you support authoritarian viewpoint) What about people who naturally tend to agree (the "acquiescent") If you score highly on the F-scale, how do we know if you are acquiesent or authoritarian? This has been fixed by more modern researchers such as Altemeyer - the Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale This theory has drawn a lot of criticism (a lot inherited from its Freudian roots). Was it true research or a rhetorical tool for use against a particular political system? Much of the data was collected by the use of projective tests (also psychoanalytic) such as the TAT - low on reliability. Another serious criticism: Fails to explain prejudice in societies where prejudice is the norm (eg. South Africa, Southern U.S.A, etc), because it looks at the individual level of analysis. Evidence: relational studies. How strongly is prejudice related to authoritarianism in normatively prejudiced societites as opposed to in normatively non-prejudiced ones? Not good relation: Studies correlating F-scale to various prejudice measures (S.A. studies only) Strongest relation: Ray (1980) r = 0.59 Weakest relation: Orpen & van der Schyff (1972) r = 0.05 Average relation over 25 studies: r = 0.28 (not corrected) Is authoritarianism as a concept useless? Not so - still useful in societies where prejudice is not normative. We can phrase this as: Personality variables only affect prejudice levels in certain social climates. Could we save the idea by removing the Freudian elements? Would it survive the freudectomy? Bob Altemeyer's R.W.A.: Uses cognitive theory to account for authoritarianism. We can leave the psychodynamic baggage behind. Some elements in high RWAs thinking: 1. Have trouble making inferences, especially at spotting false inferences (yea-saying). 2. Prone to self-contradiction 3. Perceive the world as being very dangerous. 4. Have trouble disengaging critical thinking from religious beliefs 5. More prone to the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) 6. Have trouble coping with ambiguity (agreed to by Adorno) In short, we can look at high RWAs as having a different cognitive set to low RWAs. Altemeyer's basic idea: Authoritarianism is a personality dimension consisting of three covarying components 1. Conventionalism 2. Authoritarian submission 3. Authoritarian aggression The other elements were dropped because of lack of evidence. Note the shift from personality to personality dimension