Dispositional explanations for obedience

Question 1

Outline the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience (4 marks)

Answer 1

The authoritarian personality is a dispositional explanation of obedience. It was investigated by Adorno et al. (1950) who used the facism scale (the f scale) to assess if personalities were aligned to behaviours expected of right wing authoritarian ideals to help understand the behaviour of the Nazi’s during WW2.
People who have an authoritarian personality are highly likely to have experienced harsh parenting and conditional love, which then creates a fear-based militant perspective of authority figures.
This creates huge levels of respect and OBEDIENCE to perceived authority figures, centred around fear of what will happen if they do not hold his attitude.