Dispositional Explanations of Obedience

Question 1

Authoritarian Personality: Procedure

Answer 1

• 2000 middle class, white americans, measuring their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
• Adorno used questionnaires and interviews to ask ppts abt their obedience
• these were measured on the F-scale (potential for fascism)
  e.g. obedience + respect for authority are the most important things for children to learn

Question 2

Authoritarian Personality: Findings

Answer 2

• individuals who score high on the F-scale identify w ‘strong’ people + have contempt for the ‘weak’
• they were also very conscious of status + show excessive respect for those of higher status
• Adorno said authoritarian ppl have a cognitive style where there’s no ‘fuzziness’ between categories of ppl, they fixed + distinct sterotypes
• positive correlation between authoritarianism + prejudice

Question 3

Authoritarian Personality: Authoritarian Characteristics

Answer 3

• especially obedient to authority
• extreme respect for authority + submissiveness to it
• show contempt for ppl w inferior social status
• highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race + gender
• need strong + powerful leaders to enforce traditional values of religion + family
• inflexible in their outlook, no gray areas, only right/wrong

Question 4

Authoritarian Personality: Origins

Answer 4

• forms in childhood as a result of strict disciplinarian parenting (expectation to be completely loyal, impossibly high standards, conditional love from parents)
• these experiences create hostility + despair in the child, who cannot express these feelings to their parents (through fear of punishment)
• instead these emotions are displaced onto the ‘weak’ (known as ‘scapegoating’)