Obedience- Dispositional explanation Flashcards
What is the authoritarian personality?
-A type of personality which Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obey people in authority.
-view society as weaker that it once was so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values.
- dismissive of inferiors and submissive to superiors
-People who are other (different ethnic groups) become convenient targets for these people who are likely to obey authority figures even when orders are destructive (Nazi Germany)
What did Adorno suggest were the origins of Authoritarian personality
-harsh parenting- resent parents but cannot express due to fear of punishment so displace onto inferiors (scapegoating)
-conditional love placed on children (“ I will love you if…”)
Outline the procedure of Adorno’s research of authoritarian personality (1950)
-studied 2000 middle class white americans and their thoughts of ethnic groups using F-scale (used to measure for authoritarian personality)
-An examples of something from the F-Scale =”Obedience and respect for authority are the most important values for children to learn.”
Outline the findings of Adorno’s research on authoritarian personality?
- found they identified with strong people and contemptuous of the weak
-conscious of social status- extreme respect and deference to superiors
-certain cognitive style: no fuzziness- black and white thinking
-positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
What are the strengths for authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?
-research support: Elms and Milgram (1966): interviewed small sample participants in Milgram’s original study and had been fully obedient. All did the f-scale and 20 obedient participants scored higher than 20 disobedient participants. The two groups were clearly different in terms of authoritarianism
HOWEVER,when researchers analysed their results, the participants did not glorify their fathers or report childhood punishment or hostile attitudes towards their mothers so lacked characteristics of authoritarianism. This means the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex and therefore authoritarianism is not a predictor for obedience.
What are the weaknesses of authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?
-Limited explanation: pre-war germany millions of people obeyed orders of anti-semitic behaviour but it is unlikely all had an authoritarian personality. Instead they identified with the anti-semitic state and scapegoated the outgroup of jews- social identity theory. Therefore Adorno’s theory is unlikely and an alternative explanation is more appropriate.
-flawed evidence: Fred Greenstein (1969) called the F-scale “ a comedy of methodological errors” as just selecting agree can achieve you a high score so anyone with this response bias can achieve this.
Political bias: F-scale only measures a tendency to an extreme for of right-wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda argued that the F-scale is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality. They point out authoritarianism in extreme left-wing ideologies such as Russian Bolshevism and that left and right-wing authoritarianism has a lot in common: complete obedience to political authority. This means that Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience across the whole political system.
