Obedience Alternate Theory: Didpsposional Factors Flashcards
About the theory (when, who,where, why)???
Shortly after the Second World War, Adorno et al. tried to understand anti-semitism in nazi Germany which produced the holocaust & the state of mind allowing so many to go along with Hitler’s beliefs that people should ‘submit to the overwhelming need to obey’. 1950 Adorno et all claimed that people with a authoritarian personality were more prone to obedience than others. More likely to be obedient and prejudiced.
What does the alternative theory assume and refer to?
It assume that the situation is irrelevant and that the disposition of the person is more important. Dispositional factors refer to factors about a person themselves; their personality traits. Moving away from circumstances and towards personality.
What did the research involve?
The research involved interviews & personality tests with over 2000 college students in the USA as well as American White non-Jewish Middle class people eg teachers, nurses. Participants had to indicate their support/ opposition on a sliding scale. Eg obedience and respect is the most important virtues children should learn. People who scored high on the F-scale (fascism) were classified as authoritarian personalities.
What are the characteristic of a typical authoritarian personality?
- someone who feels an active dislike of people from lower social classes.
-someone with fixed & conventional ideas of right/wrong, good/evil.
-someone who can’t deal with any ambiguity or uncertainty about the right way to behave, & acceptable attitudes or beliefs.
-someone who is always willing to be bossed by those of higher status than themselves.
SUPPORTERS OF OBEDIENCE.
What did Adorno claim about authoritarian personality?
It all goes back to childhood and upbringing, when they learnt to fear and obey. If the experience was from bulling by strict/ harsh parents they may have come to hate them. If they suppressed their hatred they might later on displace it towards minority groups who are seen as deviant and bad, in need of punishment. For them life is about obeying, just as they obeyed their controlling parents.
