Adorno's Dispositional Explanation for Obedience - The Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

Outline fascism and the F-scale

Answer 1

• Fascism is a political view/belief that democracy is wrong and dictatorships are the best way to run a country
• The F-scale consists of questions designed to measure unconscious attitudes towards different races and social groups as well as obedience
• “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.”
• “There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude and respect for his parents.”

Question 2

Outline Adorno’s study into dispositional factors

Answer 2

• Aim: To investigate if obedience is due to authoritarian views
• Method: More than 2000 middle-class, white American males
• Procedure: Used the F-scale and interviews to investigate the cause of obedience
• Results: Those with strong authoritarian views scored highest on the F-scale. They identified with “strong” people are disapproved of the “weak.” They were very conscious of their own and others’ social status. And they showed excessive respect to those of higher status
• Conclusion: There is a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism & prejudice towards others and obedience to authority

Question 3

Outline the characteristics of the authoritarian personality

Answer 3

• Especially obedient to those of authority
• Show contempt to those inferior to them
• Everything is either “right” or “wrong”

Question 4

Outline the origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 4

• Harsh parenting (strict discipline, high expectations) and conditional love
• They learnt from a young age that they cannot disobey or talk back to their parents
  so they project their pent up resent onto someone of less authority (a scapegoat)
• Conditional love is when a parent’s love depends on the child’s behaviour, i.e. they will only love them if they adhere to a condition (such as doing well on a test).

Question 5

Outline the term ‘scapegoating’ in relevance to the authoritarian personality

Answer 5

• Scapegoating is when a person puts blame on somebody
• A person with the authoritarian personality blames somebody else and projects their resent and hostility they have for their parents/authority figure to a person inferior to them (who becomes a scapegoat)

Question 6

What is one strength of the dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 6

1.) Supporting research: Elms and Milgram carried out a follow-up study, 20 “obedient” participants went up to 450v, 20 “defiant” participants refused to continue, participants completed F-scale, were interviewed about their views of experimenter and learner - were fine with hurting inferior learners, those who scored higher on F-scale had more troubled relationships with parents –> these were the “obedient” people therefore supporting Adorno’s theory and increasing validity

Question 7

What are two limitations of the dispositional explanation for obedience? (three in total)

Answer 7

1.) Not all obedient people are authoritarian: During Elms and Milgram’s interviews many fully obedient people reported having good relationships with their parents, it is unlikely that all 65% of those who obeyed had the same childhood and background, therefore the explanation is limited as it cannot account for all obedient people

2.) A third variable may be responsible for both authoritarianism and obedience: Middendorp and Meloen found that less-educated people are consistently more authoritarian (and thus obedient) than well-educated people, this suggests that intelligence level may cause authoritarianism and obedience, therefore we cannot establish causation of obedience through the authoritarian personality which does not consider all factors (and there thus an incomplete explanation)

3.) Fails to consider situational factors which may lead to obedience: Milgram’s explanation suggests situational variables such as location, uniform and proximity have an affect on obedience, he found that 65% of people obey orders from an authority figure but when location/uniform became more unprofessional, or proximity to the person they were hurting became closer, obedience rates decreased. This contradicts Adorno’s dispositional explanation because situational factors also have an affect on obedience, therefore the authoritarian personality cannot be used alone to explain why people obey