Explanations for obedience-Dispositional factors Flashcards
What did Adorno et al do?
They investigated the causes of an obedient personality in a study. They developed several scales including the fascism scale or F-scale to measure authoritarian personality.
What did they find?
That people with authoritarian personalities have a lot of respect for authority figures and are submissive. They don’t respect those with a lower social status and have conventional views. They believe they need strong and poweful leaders to run the country.
Where did Adorno say the personality came from?
He said it came from childhood where parents were strict and disciplined their children. They also had conditional love where affection depends on behaviour. These attitudes create resentment in the child and this emotion ends up turning to dislike for those who aren’t respectful to authority.
What research supports Adornos research?
Milgram cnducted interviews with participants who were obedient and who scored highy on the F-scale to show a link between obedience and authoritarian personalities.
What are the limitations of his research?
In WW2 when Hitler ordered people to be violent, they obeyed but this can’t be because everyone has the same authoritarian personality, so it doesn’t support everything. Also the F-scale only measures more right wing ideas and excludes left wing idealogies so it can’t be used to find authoritarian across the political spectrum. Also, the F-scale is methodologically flawed as the same box can be ticked and so results may not be accurate.
