Authoritarian personality -Dispositional explanations for obedience Flashcards
what is a dispositional explanation?
internal explanation eg. personality factors/individual reasons why someone obeys
what is an ‘authoritarian personality’?
- believe that people should completely obey or submit to their authority figures, and suppress their own beliefs
- they believe they should strictly submit to those higher in authority but those who are perceived as lower than the individual should also submit to the individual
- dismissive of those deemed to be inferior
how was the authoritarian personality measured?
Adorno et al. (1950)
using the F-scale
- measured 2000 middle-class, white Americans + their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
describe a childhood that links to the development of an authoritarian personality
Adorno found that when a child had overly harsh and disciplinarian parents and conditional love, the child would displace their anger with their parents onto seemingly ‘inferior’ others, through the process of scapegoating.
on a surface level, they would idolise their parents, but on an unconscious level, they would fear and despise them, and so arises the need to displace such anger –> eg. onto minority groups.
what were the findings of Adorno’s study?
People with authoritarian personalities:
* Identified with the ‘strong’ and pitied the ‘weak’
* Were aware of their own social status (and of those around them)
* Showed extreme respect and flattery to those of higher status
* Patronised those of lower status
* Were driven by stereotypes and prejudice
What did Elms and Milgram find?
gave 20 of Milgram’s ppts who went all the way the F Scale personality test + gave it to 20 who didn’t fully obey
* They found that the ppts who had obeyed also scored high on the F scale, showing they had authoritarian personalities
what is a strength of the authoritarian explanation? (PEE)
- research support
eg. Dambrum and Vatine - created an ‘immersive virtual environment’ in which ppts were aware that the experiment was a simulation and the learner was not being shocked, and the results were still similar to Milgram’s, showing it wasn’t due to demand characteristics. There was a clear correlation between the ppts RWA scores and the maximum shock delivered to the
victim.
TMB in both studies the ppts who had highest RWA displayed most obedience
what is a limitation of the authroitarian explanation? (PEE)
- contradictory evidence
eg. when Milgram moved the experiment to a run down office, conformity dropped from 65% to 48%
TMB it shows a link between social context of orders being given to levels of obedience - due to environmental and social factors rather than dispositional
what is a strength of the authoritarian explanation? (PEE)
-research support ( political attitudes)
eg. Begue replicated Milgram’s study as a fake game show. found that ppts who labelled themselves as more ‘left-wing’ obeyed the least
TMB right wing views have been linked to high authoritarianism
what is a limitation of the authoritarian explanation? (PEE)
- levels of education may determine obedience
eg. Middendorp and Meloen found less educated people were more authoritative + obedient
TMB instead of authoritarianism causing obedience, it was the lack of education, it suggests education plays a key role in attitudes towards authority figures.
