Obedience: dispositional explanation

Question 1

what is the meaning of a dispositional explanation

Answer 1

any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality. such explanations are contrasted with situational explanations.

Question 2

what is the dispositional explanation

Answer 2

the authoritarian personality

Question 3

explain the dispositional explanation

Answer 3

• people with the authoritarian personality show extreme expect to authority (or submissiveness).
• view society as weaker than it once was, believe we need a strong powerful leader to enforce traditional values such as love of country and famil.
• more likely to obey authority
• show contempt for those of inferior social status. fuelled by their inflexible outlook on the world. there are no grey areas in the world. Everything is either right or wrong and they are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Therefore those who belong to different ethnic groups or who are go suffered as ‘other’ are seen as responsible for the ills of society

Question 4

what are the origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 4

• adorno et al believed they form in childhood as a result of harsh parenting.
• extremely strict discipline and an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of perceived failings.
• parents give conditional love
• believed these crease resentment and hostility in a child. They can’t express these to their parent bc of fear of punishment so they displace these into others who they perceive to be weaker (known as scapegoating). This is a psychodynamic explanation

Question 5

what was the procedure of adorno et al (1950’s) research?

Answer 5

• studied over 2000 middle class white americans and their unconscious attitudes towards ethnic groups
• researchers developed several measurement scales including potential for fascism scale (F scale) Still used today.

Question 6

what were the findings from adornos research

Answer 6

• people with authoritarian learnings (score high on F scale) identified with strong people and were generally more contemptuous of the weak.
• very conscious of status and showed extreme respect, deference and servility to those of higher status - basis of obedience.
• had a certain cognitive style in which there was no fuzziness between categories of people. they had fixed and distinctive steryotypes about other groups
• found there was a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.