Obedience: dispositional explanation

Question 1

How is AP a dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 1

• highlights the importance of the individuals personality that makes people more susceptible to obeying people in authority

Question 2

What are the characteristics of people with authoritarian personalities?

Answer 2

• show extreme respect & submissiveness to authority
• view society as weaker- so need strong political leader to enforce traditional values
• show contempt for those of inferior social status
• have an inflexible outlook on the world
• people who are ‘other’ are responsible for ills in society who are a target for those with AP

Question 3

What are the origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 3

• forms in childhood as result of harsh parenting - strict discipline
• parents give conditional love

Question 4

What happens as a result of harsh parenting?

Answer 4

• creates resentment & hostility in child
• child cannot express feelings due to fear of punishment
• fears are displaced onto others who they perceive to be weaker (scapegoating)

Question 5

What was Adorno’s research procedure?

Answer 5

• studied 2000 m/c white American & their unconscious attituded towards other racial groups
• researchers developed the F-scale to measure AP

Question 6

What was Adorno’s research findings?

Answer 6

• found strong correlation between AP & prejudice
  Those who scored high on the F-scale:
• identified with the ‘strong’ and contemptuous of the ‘weak’
• showed extreme respect to those of higher status >had a certain cognitive style
• fixed & distinctive stereotypes

Question 7

What is a strength of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

Answer 7

• Research support
• Elms & Milgram, interviewed a small sample of fully obedient participants from Milgram’s original study
• They all completed the F-scale
• these 20 obedient p’s scored significantly high on F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants
• findings support

Question 8

What is a limitation of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

Answer 8

• cannot explain obedient behaviour in a population
• e.g. pre war Germany, millions of individuals showed antisemitic behaviour
• personalities must have differed in many ways>unlikely that they all possessed AP
• an alternative explanation=social identity theory (Germans identified with antisemitic Nazi state)
• adorno theory = limited

Question 9

What methodological problems are there with Adorno’s research?

Answer 9

• flawed methods, all items are worded in the same direction
• e.g. can get a high score by just selecting agree answers
• Acquiescence bias , respond in a way that agrees regardless of content
• This means response bias= AP

Question 10

What is another limitation of AP as an explanation for obedience?

Answer 10

• F- scale only measures tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology
• Christie & Jahoda argue extreme right wing & left wing ideologies fairly similar
• both emphasise importance of obedience to political authority
• Adornos theory does not account for obedience across whole political spectrum =limited