Obedience - dispositional explanation

Question 1

What is authoritarian personality?

Answer 1

• a type of personality that is especially susceptible to obeying people in authority

Question 2

What did Adorno argue about people with authoritarian personality?

Answer 2

• show an extreme respect for authority
• view society as weaker than it once was
• believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family

Question 3

What is an authoritarian’s outlook on the world like?

Answer 3

• show contempt for those of inferior social status
• inflexible outlook on the world
• people who are ‘other’ are responsible for the ills of society

Question 4

Origins of authoritarian personality

Answer 4

• forms in childhood
• harsh parenting and extremely strict discipline
• parents give conditional love
• this creates resentment and hostility
• child cannot express feelings to displaces them onto those they perceive to be weaker (scapegoating)

Question 5

Outline Adorno’s research

Answer 5

• more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups
• measured on the fascism scale

Question 6

What were Adorno’s findings?

Answer 6

• people with authoritarian leanings identified with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the weak
• showed extreme respect to those of higher status
• authoritarians had a certain cognitive style - fix distinctive stereotypes about groups
• strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 7

Research support as a strength

Answer 7

P: evidence from Milgram
E: interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and were fully obedient
E: completed the f-scale and scored significantly higher than a comparison group
P: findings support Adorno’s research

Question 8

Counterpoint to research support

Answer 8

• obedient participants had a number of characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians
• Milgram’s obedient participants did not glorify their fathers or experience harsh treatment during childhood
• link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex
• not a useful predictor of obedience

Question 9

Limited explanation - weakness

Answer 9

P: cannot explain obedience in the majority of a country’s population
E: in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient anti-Semitic behaviour, they must’ve differed in personality
E: an alternative view is that the majority of the German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state and ‘scapegoated’ the Jewish people
L: Adorno’s theory is limited - an alternative explanation is more realistic

Question 10

Political bias - weakness

Answer 10

P: F-scale only measures tendency towards and extreme right-wing ideology
E: Christie and Jahoda argued Authoritarian personality is a politically-biased interpretation of authoritarian personality
E: extreme right and left wing ideologies have a lot in common
L: not a comprehensive account for obedience across a wider political spectrum