Obedience - dispositional explanations

Question 1

What is a dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 1

Authoritarian Personality

Question 2

Who investigated Authoritarian Personality?

Answer 2

Adorno

Question 3

What is Authoritarian Personality?

Answer 3

A type of personality Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority.

Question 4

What are people who have authoritarian personality thought to be?

Answer 4

Such individuals are thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.

Question 5

How do people who have authoritarian personality view society?

Answer 5

They view society as ‘weaker’ than it once was and so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family. ‘Other’ personality types are seen as responsible for the ills of society.

Question 6

When did Authoritarian Personality originate?

Answer 6

Adorno concluded that the authoritarian personality formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting, especially those who experienced extremely strict discipline. He argued that this parenting style creates resentment and hostility in a child which is then displaced onto others who are perceived as weaker, in a process called scapegoating.

Question 7

What did Adorno et al investigate?

Answer 7

The causes of the obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle class, white american and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.

Question 8

What scale did they use?

Answer 8

The potential for fascism scale (F-scale) which is still used to measure authoritarian personality e.g. to what extent do you agree that ‘nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering.’

Question 9

What were Adorno’s findings?

Answer 9

• Those who scored high on the F scale identified with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the ‘weak’.
• they were very conscious of their own and others’ status, showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status (both of which are important in the formation of obedience)
• No ‘fuzziness’ between categories of people, with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other people.
• Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.