obedience: dis-positional factors Flashcards
what are dipositional factors?
an explanation for obedience relating to a persons personality
What sis Adorno et al aim to find?
they sought to understand the antisemitism of the holocaust
How were the ppts in Adorno et al’s experiment?
2000 white american males
What did Adorn study in the participants?
their subconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
What scale did Adorno invent for this experiment?
the fascism scale which measures the 9 factors of and authoritarian personality
what did Adorno find?
those who ranked high on the f scale generally had a authoritarian personality
what are some of the characteristics of a authoritarian personality?
they identified with strong people and were critical of the weak, they were conscious of their status and of those around them, they had fixed and distinct stereotypes and things were either right or wrong.
they are also submissive to those of higher statuses and had controversial views and prejudice towards sex, religion and family
What does Adorno suggest the origins of the authoritarian personality to be?
harsh parenting and conditional love causing the person to suppress their feeling and let the out on escape goats
why can we not establish that harsh parenting leads to authoritarian personalities?
as Adorno found several variables that effected authoritarianism so there is a correlation as they may be cause by a third factor
how does Milgram and Elm’s research support explanation?
Milgram used the F scale on ppts how were fully obedient and found those ppts also scored higher on the f scale
why is this explanation limited?
as not all of the German population could have had a authoritarian personality
What is the more realistic explanation for the antisemitism?
social identity theory- the population identified more with the Nazis then Jews
What are the criticisms of the F scale?
political bias, could measure agree ability (acquirers,
why has Adorno’s experiment have a low internal validity?
it didn’t test what it intended to test due to :desirability bias, interviewer effect, difficult to understand questions
