Explanations for obedience - dispositional Flashcards
What is the dispositional explanation?
perception of behaviour as caused by internal characteristics of individuals
Authoritarian personality characteristics?
- holds rigid beliefs
- intolerant of ambiguity
- submissive to authority
- hostile to lower status people
What did Adorno measure?
individuals degree of having an authoritarian personality by asking them 20 questions which made up the F-scale questionnaire
What Zilmer et al report? (nazi’s)
16 nazi war criminals scored highly on certain portions of the F-scale but not on all 9 sections
What did Elms and Milgram find? (Milgrams study)
found participants in Milgrams study who were highly obedient were significantly more authoritarian on the F-scale than disobedient participants
What did Altemeyer report?
participants with an authoritarian personality who were ordered to give themselves shocks, gave higher shocks than those without the personality
F-scale research support?
although it has research support, supposedly authoritarian individuals do not always score highly on all dimensions
What does the F-scale suffer from?
response bias as the wording is in a confirmed direction
What did Altemeyer produce?
the less biased scale
How is the theory politically biased?
individuals are only seen as existing on the conservative side
