Dispositional Explanation for Obedience

Question 1

Dispositional Explanation

Answer 1

Any explanation for behavior that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality.

Question 2

What did Adorno aim to understand?

Answer 2

The anti-Semitism behind the Holocaust.

Question 3

What did Adorno conclude that obedience was?

Answer 3

A psychological disorder, as it could be located in the personality of the individual.

Question 4

Fascism

Answer 4

When a lust for power or money is combined with an intense intolerance towards those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions, or nations as to be ruthless in using deceit and violence to attain an ends.

Question 5

Adorno et al. (1950) - Aim

Answer 5

To understand what leads people to develop an authoritarian personality.

Question 6

Adorno et al. (1950) - Procedure

Answer 6

Studied over 2000 white, middle-class, American families. Used several rating scales, including the F-scale, and interviews to find unconscious attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities, political views, and moral standards.

Question 7

Adorno et al. (1950) - Findings

Answer 7

People with authoritarian traits identified with ‘strong’ people, and were contemptuous of the ‘weak’, were very conscious of status, showed excessive respect and servility to those of a higher status, had a cognitive style with distinctive stereotypes of other groups.

Question 8

Adorno et al. (1950) - Conclusion

Answer 8

There was a strong positive correlation between prejudice and authoritarianism.

Question 9

Authoritarian Personality

Answer 9

A type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of a higher status and dismissive of inferiors.

Question 10

Characteristics of the Authoritarian Personality

Answer 10

Highly obedient, dismissive if anyone below them, very conservative views of race, sex, and gender, have a distinctive cognitive style, think society is ‘going to the dogs’, believe we need strong, powerful leaders to promote traditional values such as love of country, religion, and family.

Question 11

What is the origin of the Authoritarian Personality?

Answer 11

Adorno concluded that it is formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting.

Question 12

Features of a harsh parenting style.

Answer 12

Strict discipline, expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards, severe criticisms of perceived failings, conditional love.

Question 13

Scapegoating

Answer 13

When a child cannot express their feelings to their parents (for fear of punishment) and instead displace their fears onto weaker individuals.

Question 14

What two results can come of a harsh parenting style?

Answer 14

Fear of parents, or hatred of parents.

Question 15

What does a fear of parents lead to?

Answer 15

Being excessively respectful of authority figures.

Question 16

What does a hatred of parents lead to?

Answer 16

Hate and anger being displaced onto others.

Question 17

Strengths of the Dispositional Explanation

Answer 17

• Supporting evidence from Elms and Milgram (1966) - asked 20 obedient and 20 disobedient participants to complete personality questionnaires, including the F-scale. The obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale, interviews also found that they were not very close with their fathers during childhood, and they seemed to admire the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment.
• Could be applied to real-life situations (such as the Holocaust) to attempt to explain certain behaviours.

Question 18

Limitations of the Dispositional Explanation

Answer 18

• Contradictory evidence from Middendorp and Meleon (1990) - found that less educated individuals are more likely to display authoritarian characteristics. This may show that levels of education is a more influential variable in obedience.
• The social-psychological explanation argues that high rates of obedience are a result of authority figures over others. Blass and Schmitt (2001) provides evidence for this opposing theory.
• Limited usefulness, as the explanation is related to individual personality, not large populations.
• Limited usefulness as correlation is not causation - Adorno’s research gathered correlational findings. Therefore, we cannot establish cause and effect, or say that there were no other factors involved.
• Adorno’s F-scale only measured from an extremely right-wing point-of-view.
• Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that this is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality.