Dispotional explanation eval

Question 1

Flawed evidence

Answer 1

The findings of studies using the F-scale have allowed researchers to develop explanations of obedience by measuring Authoritarian Personality.
But the evidence base is flawed because the F-scale suffers from several limitations. These include response bias, where an individual can get a high score on the scale simply by agreeing with every item. This would show them to have an Authoritarian Personality even when they have not thought properly about their responses. So research studies that use the F-scale may not be measuring Authoritarian Personality accurately (or even at all).
Therefore the concept of Authoritarian Personality (and explanations of obedience) may not be valid if the method of measuring it is so flawed.

Question 2

Research support

Answer 2

One strength is evidence from Milgram supporting the Authoritarian Personality.
Milgram, together with Alan Elms (Elms and Milgram 1966), interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and been fully obedient. They all ompleted the F-scale (and other measures) as part of the interview. These 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher on the overall F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants. The two groups were clearly quite different in terms of authoritarianism.
This finding supports Adorno et al’s view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an Authoritarian Personality.

Question 3

Counterpoint However,

Answer 3

Counterpoint However, when the researchers analysed the individual subscales’of the F-scale, they found that the obedient participants had a number of characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians. For example unlike authoritarians, Milgram’s obedient participants generally did not glorify their fathers, did not experience unusual levels of punishment in childhood and did not have particularly hostile attitudes towards their mothers.
This means that the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex. The obedient participants were unlike authoritarians in so many ways that authoritarinan is unlikely to be a useful predictor of obedience

Question 4

Limited explanation

Answer 4

One limitation is that authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country’s population.
For example, in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti-Semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they must have differed in their personality in all sorts of ways it seems unlikely that they all possess an Authoritarian Personality. An alternative view is that the majority of the German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the ‘outgroup’ of Jews, a social identity theory approach.
Therefore Adorno’s theory is limited because an alternative explanation is much more realistic

Question 5

Political bias

Answer 5

Another limitation is that the F-scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology.
Richard Christie and Marie Jahoda (1954) argued that the F-scale is a politically-biased interpretation of Authoritarian Personality. They point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism in the shape of Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism. In fact, extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common. For example they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to political authority.
This means Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum