Obedience- Dispositional Explanation

Question 1

Authoritarian Personality and Obedience

Answer 1

• Adorno argued that people with an AP first of all show an extreme respect for and submissiveness to authority
• Such poeple view society as ‘weaker’ than it once was, so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family
• also show contempt for those of inferior social status which is fuelled by their inflexible outlook on the world

Question 2

Origins of the Authoritarian Personality

Answer 2

• Adorno believes that the AP type forms in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting
• this parenting style usually features strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of perceived failings
• parents give conditonal love- their love and affection for the child depends entirely on how he or she behaves
• Adorno argued that these experiences create resentment and hostility within a child
• but the child cannot express these feelings towards the parent through fear of ounishment - fears are displaced onto others who they perceive weaker in a process known as scapegoating

Question 3

Adornos Research

Answer 3

• studied more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
• used the F-scale to measure authoritarian personality- an example of a question would be ‘obedience and respect are the most important virtues for a child to learn’
• people with authoritarian leanings identified with ‘strong’ people and were contemptuous of the ‘weak’
• they were also very conscious of their status and showed extreme respect for others of a higher status
• authoritarian people also had a certain cognitive style- black and white thinking and distinctive stereotypes of other groups
• strong positive correlation between prejudice and authoritarianism

Question 4

Research support for AP

strength

Answer 4

• Small proportion of Milgrams participants that had been fully obedient completed the F-scale as part of an interview
• 20 obedient participants scored higher on the F-scale in comparison a control group of 20 disobedient participants
• This finding supports Adorno’s view that obedient people show similar characteristics to people who have an AP

Question 5

Limited explanation

limitation

Answer 5

• Authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country’s population
• for example in pre-war Germany millions of poeple displayed anti-semitic behaviour despite the fact their personalities will have largely differed
• extremely unlikely that they all had an AP
• alternative view- all German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state and scapegoated the Jews, a social identity theory approach

Question 6

Political Bias

Limitation

Answer 6

• F-scale only measures a tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology
• Also left with authoritarianism such as Chinese Maoism
• Extreme left and right wing ideologies have a lot in common e.g. both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to political authority
• Adornos theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience across the whole political spectrum