Obedience: Dispositional Explanations

Question 1

Dispositional explanation

Answer 1

any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality (i.e. their disposition). Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations

Question 2

Authoritarian Personality

Answer 2

a type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.

Question 3

Procedure (Adorno)

Answer 3

• investigated causes of the obedient personality
• 2000 middle class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
• developed several scales to investigate this, including the potential for racism scale (F-scale)

Question 4

Findings (Adorno)

Answer 4

• those who scored high on F-scale (have authoritarian leanings) identified with ‘strong’ people and were generally contemptuous of the ‘weak’.
• continue of own and others’ status, showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status
• strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.

Question 5

Authoritarian characteristics

Answer 5

• people with authoritarian personality have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority.
• have extreme respect for authority and submissive to it
• high conventional attitudes towards race, sex and gender

Question 6

Origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 6

• formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting
• strict discipline, absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards, severe criticism of perceived failings.
• also characterised by conditional love - the parents’ love and affection for their child depends entirely on how he or she behaves.
• these experiences created resentment and hostile in the child, but the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents because of a well-founded fear of reprisals.
• psychodynamic explanation