Obedience- Dispositional explanations

Question 1

define Dispositional explanation

Answer 1

any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality . explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations.

Question 2

define authoritarian personality

Answer 2

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

Question 3

what did adorn et al conclude

Answer 3

people with an authoritarian personality are especially obedient to authority. They:

1) Have exaggerated respect for authority and submissiveness to it.

2) Express contempt for people of inferior social status.

3) Have conventional attitudes towards race and gender.

Question 4

when dose a authoritarian personality originate

Answer 4

in childhood

Question 5

what happened in childhood for a authoritarian personality to arise.

Answer 5

through harsh parenting: extremely strict discipline, impossible high standards and conditional love

Question 6

what dose harsh parenting cause.

Answer 6

create resentment and hostility in the child,

cannot express this so displace feelings onto others who are seen as weaker. explains hatred for social inferiors

Question 7

describe Adorno et als study procedure.

Answer 7

study investigated unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups

fascism scale (F-scale), to study this.

Question 8

what was Adorno et als findings

Answer 8

Authoritarians identified with ‘strong’ people and were contemptuous of the ‘weak’.

Authoritarian people also had a cognitive style where there was no ‘fuzziness’ between categories of people, with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other people.

strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.