dispositional explanations of obedience Flashcards
authoritarian personality
Adorno et al - people obey because they have the authoritarian personality
what are the characteristics
- show extreme respect for authority
- view society as ‘weaker’ than before
- believe in strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
- more likely to obey orders from authority
- show contempt for those of inferior social status
- no ‘grey areas’
- uncomfortable with uncertainty
- people of other ethnic groups are responsible for ills of society
where does it originate from
- forms in childhood (result of harsh parenting)
- parenting style : features extreme discipline, severe criticism and high standards
- conditions of worth
- these childhood experiences create resentment and hostility
- fear of punishment
- psychodynamic explanation
what did Adorno et al do
- studied over 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
- for fascism state (F-scale)
- used to measure AP
- measures tendency towards fascism
what did they find
- people with authoritarian learnings identified with ‘strong’ people and are contemptuous for the ‘weak’
- conscious of status
- showed extreme respect, deference and senility to those of a higher status
- had a certain cognitive style
- had fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups
- strong positive correlation between AP and prejudice
one strength
p: the authoritarian personality can be supported by research to explain obedience e: Elms + Milgram interviewed people who participated in the original study and were fully obedient. obedient pts scored higher on the f-scale than disobedient pts t: research supports adorno et al’s idea that obedient people carry similar characteristics to people with an AP
one limitation
p: it can’t be generalised for whole country population e: in pre-war Germany individuals generally displayed obedient, racist and anti-semitic beh. making it extremely likely the possess AP t: situational explanations are more valid than dispositional limiting value of Adornos study
one limitation
p: flawed biased e: Greenstein calls the f-scale a ‘comedy of methodological errors’ because it is flawed scale. it only focused on middle class white americans and the questionnaire lacks validity t: this means that anyone with this response bias is assessed as having authoritarian personality
