Obedience: dispositional explanation

Question 1

What are dispositional explanations?

Answer 1

Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality

Question 2

What are the characteristics of people with authoritarian personalities?

Answer 2

1) show extreme respect & submissiveness to authority
2) view society as weaker- so need strong political leader to enforce traditional values
3) show contempt for those of inferior status 4) inflexible outlook on the world
5) people who are ‘other’ are responsible for ills insociety

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:
  -i dentified 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 research support is there for the AP explanation?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Why is the AP explanation limited?

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 a limitation of the F-scale?

Answer 10

• 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