Social dominance orientation: Ideology of attitude of someone who sees society as a hierarchy with themselves in dominant position while others in a lower status. (Don’t believe in equality)
Those who believe in hieratical society are more likely to be prejudice towards low status groups & want own group to dominate.
Rigid thinking correlates with prejudice, they ruthless * tough minded, competitive & work towards own interest desiring supremacy.
Cohrs et al – used self-report data & found correlation between right wing authoritarianism & prejudice. More open you are the less authoritarian.
Right-wing Authoritarianism:
Authoritarianism which links to political focus & thought to produce prejudice & discrimination. Researchers found correlation.
RWA – someone who has rigid & inflexible thinking & likes society to have rules & obey them in authority. Prefer people to submit to authority rather than force them, but will if necessary.
Believe the world is dangerous & desire satiability security & group cohesion. They are aggressive to subordinates & submissive to authority figures.
Authoritarian Personality:
Adoro et al proposed prejudice was a result of an individual personality type. Argued some deep-seated personality traits made some people highly sensitive to totalitarianism (dictatorship) & anti-democratic ideals. Prone to high prejudice.
Adult behaviour stems from childhood those with strict parents who couldn’t place anger on their parents displaced it on other groups. Harsh parenting not always produce prejudice individuals. Some prejudice people do not conform to authoritarian personality.
Doesn’t explain why people prejudice against certain group.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Cohrs – he found a + correlation between RWA & prejudice. Found attitudes on homosexuality, disabilities & foreigners – demonstrates ppl with this personality have rigid & inflexible attitudes – preferring society to have rules & create group cohesion & those who don’t fit in are targets of prejudice.
Cohrs – high G – had a large diverse sample union which was gathered through Germany. – meaning we can generalise results to the whole of German population. Application – prejudice is a result of personality through strict upbringing for example then there are implications for society to reduce prejudice – would include encouraging parents to be less strict & more aware of how upbringing can encourage prejudice. |
Cohrs – however he only had country generalisability as his sample only used German population – therefore the study cannot be generalised to all of the world.
Different theory – RCT suggests prejudice is affected by in-group & out-group formations over scarce resources. – personality roles may not be as important as situation factors. |