obedience - dispositional explanation Flashcards
authoritarian personality
who proposed the authoritarian personality
adorno et. al (1950)
what is the dispositional explanation for obedience
authoritarian personality
traits of someone who obtains an authoritarian personality
- extreme respect & submissiveness to authority
- believe society is ‘weaker’ & requires strong/powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
- disregard those of inferior status
- inflexible outlook on world
when does this personality form & as a result of what
childhood
–> result of strict disciplinarian parenting
parenting style features
- expectation for full loyalty
- impossibly high standards
- conditional love
what does the parenting style cause the child act like
- hostility & resentment
- cannot express feelings towards parents as fear punishment
- displace fears onto those who are perceived as weaker (scapegoating)
what’s the term for displacing emotions onto the weak
scapegoating
how did adorno develop the authoritarian personality
- research conducted on 2000 white, middle-class americans & their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups
- use potential-for-fascism scale (F scale)
findings of adorno’s research of those who scored high on the f-scale
- identified with strong & pitied weak
- aware of own social status (& those around them)
- extreme respect/flattery to those who were superior/higher status
- patronised lower status
- positive correlation between authoritarianism & stereotypes/
prejudice
AO3 +) research support
-) counterpoint
E:
- elms & milgram (1966) interviewed small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies & were fully obedient
- completed f-scale as part of the interview
- the 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher than group of 20 disobedient participants
T: findings support adorno et al.’s view that obedient people may show similar characteristics to those with the authoritarian personality
HOWEVER: when researchers analysed individual subscales of f-scale, they found the obedient participants had many characteristics unusual for authoritarians
- milgram’s obedient participants generally didn’t glorify their fathers, didn’t experience unusual levels of punishment during childhood & didn’t have especially hostile attitudes towards their mothers
- means link between obedience & authoritarianism is complex, so authoritarianism is likely not an accurate predictor of obedience
AO3 -) cannot explain obedient behaviour in majority of countries population
E:
- in pre-war germany, millions displayed obedient & antisemitic behaviour, despite the fact they differed in personalities
- seems unlikely they all possessed authoritarian personalty
- alternative view is majority of germany’s population identified with antisemitic nazi state, so scapegoated ‘outgroup’ of jews (social identity theory approach)
T: suggests authoritarian personality theory is limited as an alternative explanation is more realistic
AO3 -) f-scale only measures tendency towards extreme form of right-wing ideology
E:
- christie & jahoda (1954) argued f-scale is politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality
T: adorno’s theory is not comprehensive dispositional explanation which accounts for obedience to authority across whole political spectrum
