5. Obedience: Dispositional Explanation Flashcards
Define a disposition so explanation
Behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality in a situation
Define an Authoritarian Personality
- a type of personality that makes a person more likely to obey a person in authority
- a person who’s submissive to superiors and dismissive of inferiors
The Origins of the Authoritarian Personality were a —————— explanation
Psychodynamic
What did Adorno et al believe formed an Authoritarian personality?
- harsh parenting (strict discipline)
- expectations of absolute loyalty
- impossibly high standards
- conditional love
Explain the theory of scapegoating
-The idea that when an authoritarian personality is formed with a child, they feel resent and anger, but cannot show their parents for fear of punishment
- so they displace the anger on people that they believe are less inferior to them
Outline the procedure of Adorno et als research (1950)
- 2000 white Americans were studied
- researchers developed the F scale to measure the Authoritarian personality
What were the findings of Adorno et als research?
- people who had an authoritarian personality had a higher F scale score
- authoritarian personalities have a certain cognitive style
What are the strengths of The Authoritarian Personality?
- evidence support from Migram and Elms, who asked participants from previous studies to complete the F scale, those who obeyed had a higher F scale rating
- COUNTERPOINT when researchers studied the participants not all of them had characteristics typical of an Authoritarian person
What are the limitations of the Authoritarian Explanation?
- alternative explanations are much more realistic due to a social identity theory approach
- The F scale shows political bias due to the fact it has answers based on a right wing extreme
What is the F scale?
A developed scale from Adorno et al issued to measure how strongly people express authoritarian traits
