Obedience: Dispositional explanation Flashcards
What did Adorno et al. (1950) believe about high obedience?
That unquestioning obedience is a psychological disorder with roots in personality.
What is the main characteristic of the Authoritarian Personality?
Extreme respect for authority and contempt for those of lower social status.
How does hostility develop in individuals with an Authoritarian Personality?
It originates in childhood through overly strict parenting and is later displaced onto weaker individuals (scapegoating).
How do people with an Authoritarian Personality behave toward authority figures?
They show exaggerated respect and are submissive.
How do they view people of lower social status?
With contempt and hostility.
How do authoritarians perceive social problems?
They blame ‘other’ groups for society’s issues.
How does strict parenting contribute to the Authoritarian Personality?
It includes extremely strict discipline, expectations of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards, and severe criticism.
What role does conditional love play?
The child receives love only when they meet their parents’ expectations, fostering resentment and hostility.
What is scapegoating?
Displacing hostility and resentment from parents onto weaker individuals or groups.
What type of explanation is this?
A psychodynamic explanation.
What did Adorno et al. investigate?
Unconscious attitudes toward other ethnic groups in over 2,000 middle-class white Americans.
What measurement tool did they develop?
The F-scale (potential-for-fascism scale).
Give two examples of F-scale statements.
-“Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn.”
-“There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents.”
How did high scorers on the F-scale behave?
-Identified with ‘strong’ people and were contemptuous of the weak.
-Showed excessive respect for those of higher status.
What was their cognitive style?
They had rigid, stereotypical thinking with clear, fixed distinctions between social groups (prejudices).
strength of authoritarian personality
One strength is evidence that authoritarians are obedient.
Elms and Milgram (1966) interviewed
20 fully obedient participants from Milgram’s original obedience studies.
They scored significantly higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants.
This suggests that obedient people may share many of the characteristics of people with an Authoritarian Personality.
limitation (1) of Authoritarian personality
One limitation is authoritarianism can’t explain a whole country’s behaviour.
Millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient and antiSemitic behaviour - but can’t all have had the same personality.
It seems unlikely the majority of Germany’s population had an Authoritarian Personality. A more likely explanation is that Germans identified with the Nazi state.
Therefore social identity theory may be a better explanation.
limitation (2) of Authoritarian personality
One limitation is that the F-scale is flawed
The F-scale has been used in many research studies that have led to an explanation of obedience based on the Authoritarian Personality.
However, the F-scale is flawed (Greenstein), e.g. people who tend to agree to the statements (response bias) are scored as authoritarian.
Therefore, explanations of obedience based on research with the F-scale may not be valid.
